"It is finished."

Tomorrow marks "Good Friday", and as a Christian I've always had trouble with this concept. It's very confusing to tell a child to love Jesus - who was the personification of God's love - and then accept his brutal death on our account as "good". Instead I think it should be called "Necessary Friday".

There are many things that are necessary that aren't necessarily "good" - and I think this falls under that. It's needed to facilitate Easter (which is where the real triumph is, IMO), but in reality it's losing a limb to save a life.

In my own particular worship of this sacrifice and what this day means to me personally, it has also taken on a world view with many political and spiritual ramifications. This is especially true when I see how so many people view this one instance so very differently. It truly can mean something different to each one of us, and to be perfectly honest I feel that's where we both fail and succeed as humans, so limited in our concept of an all knowing, all loving God.

I think this is illustrated perfectly in the debate of holy warfare.

There are a great many people who have decided that they need to take up the sword and by force and by might render the "enemy" defenseless. This is why so many good God fearing Christians can support things like war, which comes at the price of innocent lives lost. It comes back to the "good" vs. "necessary" argument. So many feel that a few lives (and souls) lost now can mean many more lives and souls saved in the future, and any destruction or devastation is simply collateral damage to ensure the greater good.

While I understand that to a degree, I kind of think more along the lines of Jesus in this way. There's a great line in "Jesus of Nazareth" where he tells Peter, "You think as men think. Not as God thinks."

Put yourself in his shoes for a moment. Imagine that you lived your life for only one purpose; to bring peace and love to a lost humanity to reconcile God and his creation. He guided us and taught us out of the love and forgiveness it would require of him to make this willing sacrifice. Think how he must feel when he sees blood shed in his name after he had already paid the ultimate, painful, agonizing price to defeat sin and death.

Dunno bout you but it breaks my heart.

Some think we cannot know this level of mercy and love because Jesus wasn't a mere human... but I say he was more human than any one of us. He could feel love, he could feel anger. He could laugh, and he could cry.

And he could feel pain - pain like none of us have likely ever endured or will in our lifetime.

He was the best of humanity in human form. Yet somehow we have forsaken this.

So many of us take our communion and wear our Sunday best to church to remember the sacrifice he made as more of a historical event instead of the liberation it was meant to be. We think of it as a miracle passed, instead of living currently in the promise.

It's important to remember what he went through, no question. But I think even more important is to know *why* he went through it. Because if we do, then we realize that everything he died for then is still in effect today. And you know how we know? Because of those three words he uttered when the deed was done.

"It is finished."

If you are Christian and believe that Jesus did in fact die for your salvation, and that God in fact allowed his beloved son to be tortured and reviled for your sin - then on a very basic fundamental level you agree with that statement. You believe that the act of his crucification was a price paid not just for your minor transgressions but for the transgressions of mankind as a whole; that the evil nature of man was rectified with God and balance was restored.

We don't have to take up the sword to bring him back or to fulfill the Biblical prophesy for Armaggedon. It is finished.

We don't have to wage war against each other for perceived failures or theoretical differences. It is finished.

We don't have to force others to go by our own limited laundry list of good and evil to save *their* souls. It is finished.

It was all a done deal that Necessary Friday two thousand years ago.

So why, inside of us, does that battle still rage on? Because we've been deceived to believe that the miracle of his death and resurrection was a moment in history - something to recall every year over ham and colorful dyed eggs. Something to remember as we sip grape juice and nibble tasteless crackers that get passed around in silver or gold trays.

But do we ever really, truly remember the most important part of this story? That love - not violence... life - not death... is the real miracle?

Do we want to remember the nails driven into human flesh - or the hands that willingly opened themselves to take that pain so we wouldn't have to?

Do we want to remember a man dying on a cross in the limits of human flesh? Or blowing open a grave with the promise of immortality?

Where is the victory if we're still on the battlefield?

It is finished.

So on this Necessary Friday, remember the incredible love it had to take to make the sacrifice, rather than just the sacrifice itself.

And in doing so...

Find your own love to reach out to someone else.