At our Good Friday service last night we looked at how the cross spells the ‘Great Reversal’ for humanity. Palindromic words are those which are spelled the same backwards as forwards (‘minim’, or ‘level’, for example.) Some words, however, are different if they are read backwards: ‘stressed’ spelled backwards is ‘desserts‘:
There are many words like this in English (‘made’ and ‘Edam’, ‘tin’ and ‘nit’, ‘gums’ and ‘smug’, for example, but the word we looked at last night is ‘evil’, which, when spelled backwards is ‘live.’ Good Friday is the day when we remember the death of Jesus. It’s a day of profound sadness, for Jesus was an innocent man, killed (as far as the world is concerned) because of religious intolerance and not because He had actually committed crimes worthy of death. It’s a day when evil apparently triumphed, when a good man was crucified not for His own sins, but for the sins of the world. Eugene Peterson comments that ‘evil captured the headlines in Jerusalem two thousand years ago’ (‘On Living Well’, P 109), and it’s sad to say that that is still true today; reading any newspaper or watching the news reminds us that evil still dominates today.
But despite this, we call Good Friday good, not because an innocent man died, but because this was part of God’s great plan of salvation, a reminder that despite man’s evil, ‘this man was handed over to you by God’s deliberate plan and foreknowledge.’ (Acts 2:23) At the cross, ‘God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them.’ (2 Cor 5:19) Something positive, good, wholesome and redemptive was also going on at the cross, even as people felt hope had gone and evil was winning.
We cannot ever understand the death of Jesus Christ by staying at Good Friday. We have to go through this Easter weekend, through the confusion and agony of Easter Saturday, through the silence of the tomb and the apparent hopelessness of death, to see evil reversed and resurrection happening. Peter told the crowds on the day of Pentecost that the crucifixion was not the end of the story. ‘But God raised him from the dead, freeing him from the agony of death, because it was impossible for death to keep its hold on him.’ (Acts 2:24) The word evil is now spelled right: we can live, because Jesus lives. He is raised from the dead; death could not hold Him. Life triumphs. ‘God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.’ (John 3:16) Evil will not have the last word; eternal life has that privilege.
What is happening in our world right now might not be good. It might even be evil. Joseph certainly faced much in his life that was not good: his brothers selling him into slavery, ending up in prison because of injustice, being forgotten in prison when he had done his utmost to help others. But ultimately, he saw a resurrection of kinds when he was taken from prison and made second in command only to Pharaoh, when his actions were responsible for the saving of many, including his own family from Israel. Job faced pain, sorrow, bereavement and loss, greater than most of us can even imagine, but again, he saw a resurrection of kinds when God blessed the second part of his life even more than the first! (Job 42:12) Easter reminds us that no matter how bad things are (not just how they seem, how bad they actually are), we are on the winning side. Jesus lives, therefore we live. Evil doesn’t win. ‘Jesus’s resurrection spells the words right now so that we can speak rightly, sing in tune and live saved. Live, not evil, is the way to spell it. Resurrection recovers the original word, the Word become flesh.’ (Eugene Peterson, ‘On Living Well’, P 110)
Christ took the punishment that should have been ours. He bore our sins. He wiped the slate clean, and now we can not only know the joys of sins forgiven but can have eternal life, free from condemnation and accusation. Now we can be children of God, heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ. (Rom 8:17) Easter sees the greatest reversal of all, evil turned to live.
