I don’t know about you, but I LOVE a good cliffhanger. That moment when everything is at stake for your favourite characters, and then the Season Finale hits, or the Credits at the Movies start rolling,and you have to wait for aaaages to find out how everything is resolved! One of the biggest cliffhanger’s I’ve ever seen came at the end of Avengers Infinity War, where the bad guy Thanos … actually won, and our Heroes suffered a most terrible defeat. Thanos sits down at the end of the movie with a nice smile and the Heroes fall to their knees in despair – the literal ashes of their friends left scattered across their battlefield.
On Good Friday, we Christians commemorated a similar situation; our own Cliffhanger of sorts. On Good Friday, roughly 2,000 years ago, Jesus Christ, God himself dwelling amongst us in Human flesh; the Messiah that God promised for thousands of years (as Early as Genesis 3); the Saviour and King who promised to deliver his people from slavery to Sin and give them Eternal Life; the one who promised that the Kingdom of Heaven was now at hand and that even the Gates of Hell itself could not prevail …. Hung Dead on a Cross. Betrayed by one of his own Disciples (Judas of Iscariot), abandoned by the Rest. His Mother wept at His Feet, a Crown of Thorns pierced his head. And with His final breath surrendered, a Roman spear was driven through his side to make sure the Job was truly done.
What a Dark and Hopeless moment that must have been for the followers of Christ. So much Promised, yet in the moment, so much more seemed to be lost. If I can draw a rough analogy, For Jesus’s followers, I imagine they must have felt a similar way as the Avengers did at the end of Infinity War: Awww Snap! Did … Did we just … Loose?? Did the Bad Guys … just Win??
But despite how Dark and Hopeless the situation Looked, the Story of this moment, now called Easter … was not over yet. You see this wasn’t the season finale, the roll of the credits, but it was the cliffhanger between the start of the story and the ending that was just three days away; the time between the Promises Made, and the Fulfilment of those Promises. For the Story of Easter did not end with a Bloodied Cross, a crown of Thorns, or Jesus’s Dead body wrapped up in a Cold tomb. No, the story of Easter ended with Death itself Defeated, the Grave barren and empty, and Jesus Risen and Alive.
And this Victory that Jesus won 2,000 years ago gives us great hope for our own Stories. Because sometimes, there are moments in Life that are like our own Good Friday. All our hopes and dreams lie broken before us, and have we have no idea, no hope, for what comes next. Maybe a Career fell through, and now you have no idea where the next pay check will come from. Maybe someone hurt you so Badly, that now only God himself could truly empathise and understand. Maybe you prayed for Healing for a dear friend, but then Death came instead. Whatever it is, or was, that happened, it feels like a Good Friday moment: everything promised and hoped for seems completely lost.
But if we stand with Christ, no matter how hopeless the situation looks, our stories are actually not yet completed. For if we stand with Christ, then no matter how devastating they may be, our Stories do not end in the ashes of our Suffering, nor in the scattered pieces of our Shattered Hope. They do not end on this Earth, but in Eternity, where God promises that:
“He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death’ or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.” (Revelation 21:4, ESV)
And so, if we place our trust in Christ, the time between the Pain of the Good Friday moments we Experience in this life, and the Eternal Joy we will experience with God in Heaven, becomes like the time between Good Friday and Resurrection Sunday. Not a season finale, but a cliff hanger (of sorts); a time between the beginning of the story and it’s end. And so no matter what we suffer in this Life, because of the Victory that Christ won on this Day 2,000 years ago, if we place our faith and our trust in Christ, then no matter how dark things get, there is a Great Joy on the Horizon; the dawn of our own Resurrection Sunday.
So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal. (2 Corinthians 4:16-18, ESV).
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