"Gospel" means good news! Good news on Good Friday. And yet, it's a story of such profound suffering. What's so good about that? Jesus' suffering in this story, it isn't simply necessary. It is good. It is the price of eternal life. That suffering, he endures alone. At the Resurrection, he is alone. And then...we; he has a few allies. And then more. A congregation.
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God has no country. There is one God for the world. And the lines we draw, and the treaties we draft, and the border we close mean nothing to Him. No, don't fight for a country. You fight for God's kingdom. A kingdom which Jesus tells us has no flags or borders. God's army. [pause] Conscience. In the army of God, conscience is standard issue. There are many like it, but this one is mine. You may think that that's a line from a war movie, but it isn't. That's actually the Rifleman's Creed. And a creed is, by definition, not just a belief, but it is a religious one. So, it is a war, and there will be casualties. And we must be soldiers. That is what Good Friday is about. The Gospel of the Lord, so full of horrors, is only good because of where it is headed: the Resurrection.
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