It’s a big day. As we look at the power in Good Friday Nick Waldsteadt of Gold Creek Community Church dives into why Good Friday is considered Good, why it’s a part of holy week that shouldn’t be rushed, and how it changes everything in our own lives.
Show Notes:
Transcription:
Purposely your life, God’s purpose. Listen at onpurposely.com. In His Steps, a Holy Week journey.
Mark Holland:
In studio. Very special guest. All our pastors are special guests, says we’re in his steps this week looking at the life of Jesus. This, well, they call it Holy Week. Different pastors have been assigned to talk about different days, and we have Nick Waldsteadt from Gold Creek Community Church talking about one of the, I know the best parts or we’ll find out maybe not such a great part of the Easter story of the Easter Week. And that’s good Friday. Hi, pastor Nick. Good to see you.
Nick Waldsteadt:
Boy, honored to be on with you today.
Mark Holland:
And we have you in studio. You’ve come over from Gold Creek Community Church. Tell us a little bit about the church. I guess you have several locations.
Nick Waldsteadt:
Yeah, our central location is in Mill Creek, Washington, and then we have locations in Woodinville and right off Highway nine and then in Lake Stevens. And so I’m new to the church myself. I arrived in May, gold Creek, had a founding pastor for 30 years. His name’s Dan. And yeah, it’s a real neat community of people who are imperfect figuring it out, trying to figure out how to follow Jesus in this world. And really our focus as a church is really for people who are on the outside looking in, who feel like they may not fit in, they may not have all the right answers, but
Mark Holland:
Well meeting people’s felt needs too, particularly in this current climate. You told me before we went on air about you have one of the largest food bank outreaches here in the Yeah. Biggest one is Snohomish County, is that right?
Nick Waldsteadt:
Yeah, we do. We host, we have the Hope Creek Foundation, which part of that is the Mill Creek food bank, and it’s the largest food bank in the county. We serve about, I think it’s 1500 families, maybe a little bit more than that every week. And so we do a backpack drive for weekends or for families who are food insecure and just a real neat thing. It’s a way to be adjacent to our church, but it’s a way for us to be hands and feet of Jesus, meet some practical needs. Yeah.
Mark Holland:
Okay. Well, it sounds like a wonderful thing you’ve got going there at Gold Creek Community Church. We’ll talk more about how to find out more about your church toward the end of this conversation, but into the conversation we go, like we said, we’re talking about Good Friday in the steps of Jesus, and tell us a little bit about this, as we set this up. What’s Good Friday mean to you?
Nick Waldsteadt:
I think for Good Friday, part of the Passion Week, it’s part of the Easter story that it may be, I don’t know if everybody feels this way. I know for me it can be tempting to sort of look past. It’s a part of the story that it’s very, yeah,
Mark Holland:
Everyone wants to get to the resurrection,
Nick Waldsteadt:
We want to get to Sunday and Friday may be bad, but Sunday’s coming. Right. And that’s true. But I think there’s some important stuff happening on Good Friday too. In many ways it’s brutal. It’s a story of an execution is what we’re reading about there. But I think there’s so much important stuff happening about who Jesus is and what God’s character is that we’re learning too.
Mark Holland:
Yeah. Well, I know don’t know if you’ve ever seen the film, the Passion of the Christ I have just once, and that was really hard to watch, but it really brought out this idea of the suffering of Christ. And because he comes in earlier in the week, his triumphal entry, and by the end of the week he’s here, he is on a cross and just being beaten up and brutally killed. Really?
Nick Waldsteadt:
Yeah. And when I think about the whole Good Friday narrative of what Jesus experiences in those 24 hours, really he experiences all the worst of humanity. He experiences betrayal from really his friends or his friend.
Mark Holland:
We always think of just Judas, but they all betrayed him.
Nick Waldsteadt:
They all abandoned. That’s part of the story. And he had to be looking over at Peter in that story thinking, I’ve been working on this guy for three years and here he is. Here’s his chance. Completely blows it. I know. I can relate to that on Peter’s side. And I think just in those few hours, what Jesus experiences is betrayal, abandonment, and of course, yeah, excruciating physical pain in a way that I can’t really conceptualize. And I think to say, Hey, this is part of God’s plan though. This is part of God, Jesus’ God in human form relating to us. I think we’ve probably in some way, shape or form, we’ve all experienced those emotions.
Mark Holland:
Well, again, it’s hard to grasp the suffering that Jesus went through for each of us. From put on your theology hat here, why is Good Friday, the crucifixion of Jesus, the death on the cross of Jesus? Why is that so important to the Christian faith?
Nick Waldsteadt:
Yeah, that’s a great question. I think the book I’ve been reading, it’s called Gentle and Lowly by Dane Orlund. I’ve been reading that it’s about kind of Jesus’s heart. And in it he talks about the very necessary idea of the wrath of God. And really for there to be God’s love, there has to be God’s wrath. You can’t just have love if there’s not this idea of an exchange there. So I think from a theological perspective, what’s happening on the cross is this idea of substitution. That Jesus is really taking my place on that cross. He’s experiencing all of God’s wrath against sin, which I do believe theologically, God hates sin. God wants to do something about the sin problem in the world. And so that moment of Jesus hanging on the cross is God, putting all of that on his own son, putting all of that in exchange for us, all the brutal, the pain, the shame, the betrayal, everything that goes into sin is put to death on the cross. But also in that moment, I think theologically, we say it this way in church, for those of us who are in church, we participate in Christ’s death that there’s a participation on our end in that we get to put to death our past really on the cross right there as we read about Jesus hanging on it for us. And our sin and our shame is put to death.
Mark Holland:
And Jesus is called the Lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world. And we think of all those, I don’t know how many thousands of years or a thousand years, anyway, the Jews were sacrificing all these animals and lambs, and it was kind of a bloody ritual that was going on all the time. And here comes the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world finally for the last time.
Nick Waldsteadt:
Once and for all. Once
Mark Holland:
And for all. So that’s why we need to grasp that as Christians. Absolutely. And we can’t thank God enough for this.
Nick Waldsteadt:
And I think it’s in, I should know this, but I think it’s in John’s gospel that there’s a little bit of variance in the gospel, which I think to the, speaks to the truth of them, and in John’s gospel specifically, Jesus is actually crucified on the day of preparation as those lambs are being slain in the temple courts. I think on a theological level, like you said, yeah, John is drawing that parallel. John’s saying, cause I think the other gospels have it one day earlier or whatever. But I think John, not from a historical inaccuracies standpoint, I think John’s trying to say, here’s actually happening. Those lambs, that perfect sacrifice, Jesus, is that for humanity in a way that takes away our sin.
Mark Holland:
Well, and that’s how we can have forgiveness is because sin, again, getting back to just the normal sacrifice, that’s how, that was the only way to find forgiveness, get your sins cleansed, have your sin covered, so to speak, by the blood. Again, Christianity seems so, it’s so different from other world religions in this story. Your main person that you believe in had to die for you.
Nick Waldsteadt:
That’s right. Yeah. No, that’s a great point, Mark. I think if we think about other major world religions, whether monotheistic or just major world religion, there’s this idea of humanity kind of becoming divine. So the idea that another figure, the prophet Muhammad or the Buddha would hang on a cross, would experience this level of shame, would almost in a way take away the credibility of that religion. People would say, I don’t want that. I don’t want to. But then here we have this apex moment of the Christian faith of Jesus going himself in our place. And yeah, you’re right. That was a great point. It is a differentiator. It’s a way to look at who God is differently in way.
Mark Holland:
Is there anything else that you think stands out about the idea of Jesus on the cross?
Nick Waldsteadt:
I think that for me, when I think about the whole Easter narrative, I think the empty tomb is really such a victorious moment. It means that our futures secure. It means that we don’t have to fear death and we can have this promise of heaven. But really, I think that the cross on Good Friday, if the empty tomb means my future’s secure, the cross means my past isn’t going to be a problem. It means that God is going to take care of all that stuff that weighs on me. So when I think a good Friday, I don’t know if that’s an oversimplification, but it is. That’s why I think it’s important not to look past, even with all the brutality and the discomfort around it, something really important is happening. This is what God, yeah, God’s going to conquer Satan sin, and death. God’s going to go on to do that as the stone’s going to be rolled away. But in this moment, God’s putting to death, all these things that really haunt our consciousness.
Mark Holland:
Yeah. So central to the Christian faith and Good Friday, not really. It’s interesting, some of your notes you gave me, you talked about some children’s book, not good. It was a Alexander on the terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day. Now why didn’t you bring that up? That that’s something you said you read as a kid and you applied that?
Nick Waldsteadt:
That Used to be one of my favorite books. The story of Alexander in the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day. And the book just has this awesome cadence, talks about Alexander, and he wakes up and he just knew it was going to be a terrible, horrible no good, very bad day. He has a breakfast faux pas. His brothers are mean to him. In the car ride to school, he gets blamed for something at school and just kind of reiterates this mantra. And it was a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day. And I think if we think about Good Friday, good Friday is a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day.
Mark Holland:
Yeah. The ultimate,
Nick Waldsteadt:
Yeah. It’s a moment where Jesus is whipped and he’s in many accounts crucified, naked, and his friends are there and his mom’s there. And it is a terror. It is a bad day. And I think the power of the Christian story is that we call that day Good Friday. And it’s the reminder for all of us reminded for me that my worst day is no match for God’s best day, that it’s good Friday because of what Jesus is taking on in this horrible moment for us.
Mark Holland:
Yeah. Another part, obviously of the death on the cross was the two thieves on both sides of him. Again, we don’t know a whole lot about Good Friday, but we do know about this encounter. And tell us a little bit some of your thinking about how that kind of reassures us
Nick Waldsteadt:
As well. Yeah. I mean, I think that moment of, I think it’s Luke 22 or 23, where Jesus has, he has this with these two thieves on the cross. And I think we just learned some interesting things, some important things about who Jesus is in the middle of that, in the middle of that pain and that suffering. And we know that it’s not just physical. The scripture tells us that, of course, what Jesus is experiencing is God, his father separating himself
Mark Holland:
From, yeah, why have you forsaken me? God?
Nick Waldsteadt:
And in the middle of all that, he sees these two and he’s, he’s not thinking about just himself. He’s thinking about these other guys. And then I love the one thief who says, listen, we deserve to be up here. We don’t know what these guys have done, but something bad. Maybe it’s political crime, maybe it’s some kind of massive theft. We don’t know. And he says, Jesus, just don’t forget about me when you come into your kingdom. And I think that the simplicity of that prayer, even in that moment, it just tells me, Jesus is never out of reach and it’s never too late. Nobody’s too far gone.
Mark Holland:
The death bed conversion. That’s right. The ultimate death,
Nick Waldsteadt:
The ultimate deathbed conversion, Mark. Yeah. Yeah, totally.
Mark Holland:
Yeah. We can take a lot. There’s a lot of theology right there today. You’ll be with me in paradise. That was quite a statement for Jesus to say to that guy. Yeah. That soon as we’re done here, we’re right in God’s presence.
Nick Waldsteadt:
That’s right. Yeah, that’s right. That the gap. And it’s that simple. I know that in the complexity of our lives and everything we’re navigating, sometimes it’s not always easy to keep our eyes on that. And remember that this faith we have in Christ is a pretty simple one. It says, Hey, Jesus, I believe in you. I believe in what you’ve done. And I think it’s an expression of trust in who Jesus is in that power of saying, no, I believe you. that you’re actually able to do this. And like you just said, man, that’s so good that yeah, today, right after this, right after in that moment, for this thief, I mean, Jesus doesn’t solve all his problems. He’s still got to hang on that cross and asphyxiate to death or whatever’s about to happen. It’s horrible. But the other side of that, there’s going to be this hope. It’s a really powerful thing.
Mark Holland:
And you’ve been listening to the purposely equipped series called In His Steps, a Holy Week Journey today featuring Pastor Nick Waldsteadt of Gold Creek Community Church in Mill Creek. Find out more about the church at goldcreek.org. Please leave us a review of this message so more people can discover this podcast and find more episodes of Purposely Equipped at onpurposely.com.
