Good Friday: A Tale of Two Stones
Jesus was accused and maligned, but he spoke not a word of rebuttal. He was beaten until his body was nearly unrecognizable, but he uttered no protest. He was crowned with a crown of thorns, but he made no move to remove it. He was crucified, left to hang on a cross for hours, but he demanded no relief or release. He was perfect, sinless, innocent, but he died a guilty sinner’s death. Perhaps Good Friday was incorrectly named.
If the Christian faith—and perhaps more specifically this Easter season—is anchored in anything, it is chiefly anchored in a God of seeming contradictions, contrasts, and paradoxes: the God of the illogical. He is the God of both/and, not either/or. He is a God who is both sovereign and yet bestows man with free will. He says the first shall be last and the last shall be first. He tells us we must lose our lives to find them, and that the least among us shall be the greatest. He is not moved by the ways of man and yet is somehow moved by our prayers, nonetheless. He is both unknowable and knowable. He is both just and merciful. He is the God of a kingdom that is both now and not yet, both here on earth and there in heaven. And his greatest contradiction of all? He sent his one and only worthy Son to die for oh-so-unworthy man.
As believers, we somehow must hold all these things in tension, this mysterious intermingling of simultaneous truths defying rational thought. And as image bearers of God, it also means we are people of paradox and seeming contradictions ourselves. We die to self but live to Christ (2 Cor. 4:10–12). We hunger and thirst for him (Ps. 42:1–2), but we are completely satisfied in him (John 6:35). We take up a yoke that is easy (Matt. 11:30) but walk a road that is difficult and narrow (Matt. 7:14). We both rejoice and we mourn (Rom. 12:15).
We see the same in the life of the ancient prophet Isaiah, a man called by God to deliver a message of judgment to the Israelite people, a man who believed in the sovereignty of God and the value of his calling but was met with opposition by the Israelites at every turn. The prophet declared in Isaiah 50:6–7, “I gave my back to those who strike, and my cheeks to those who pull out the beard; I hid not my face from disgrace and spitting. But the Lord GOD helps me; therefore I have not been disgraced; therefore I have set my face like a flint, and I know that I shall not be put to shame.” Isaiah set his face like flint, meaning with courage and steadfast conviction, he held onto to the truth of God’s word and his character. Flint is a hard rock, hard enough to make weapons, tools, and buildings, and it is not a rock that easily gives way. This is what Isaiah compared himself to.
But we see Isaiah’s fellow ancient prophet, Ezekiel, offer an opposing rock analogy in Ezekiel 36:26–27, “And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules” (emphasis added). Isaiah calls us to have a face like a flint, but Ezekiel calls us to do just the opposite with our hearts. When we place these side by side, they seem to oppose one another. A face like flint but not a heart like stone? How can they both be true, and how do we live both out as believers?
The answer is that we look to Jesus. As much as we see those paradoxes in the ancient prophets, we see the ultimate display of this juxtaposition of both a face like flint and a heart of flesh rather than stone in the crucifixion of Christ. Luke 9:51 says, “When the days drew near for [Jesus] to be taken up, he set his face to go to Jerusalem.” To “set his face” meant he had laser focus on his mission, and that mission was death on a cross. Jesus knew what he had to do: go to Jerusalem to endure multiple unfair trials, unimaginable suffering, and ultimately, death. But he nevertheless walked to that cross, assured in what he had been called to do, his face set toward Jerusalem and Golgotha. That’s a face of flint, a face marked by conviction and unwavering belief in the sovereignty, justice, mercy, goodness, and kindness of God.
That’s a face that sees beyond the temporary suffering in Good Friday and sees the eternal good, “the joy set before him” (Heb. 12:2).
But as he hung on the cross, that same face of flint did not flow down to a heart of stone. Can you imagine if Jesus had taken the Pharisees up on their challenge, “If you are the Son of God, come down from the cross” (Matt. 27:40)? Can you imagine if Jesus had hardened his heart in that moment, deciding the salvation of man was not worth it after all, pried the nails from his hands and feet, and lowered himself down from that cross? Can you imagine if the face set like flint had also become a heart of flint? Instead, with a tender heart, Jesus died forgiving the very people who murdered him. “And Jesus said, ‘Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.’” (Luke 23:34). A heart that whispers forgiveness instead of condemnation while being brutally murdered? That is a face set like flint, but not a heart hardened of stone.
Brennan Manning said in The Ragamuffin Gospel, “This is the God of the gospel of grace. A God, who out of love for us, sent his only son he ever had, wrapped in our skin. He learned how to walk, stumbled and fell, cried for his milk, sweated blood in the night, was lashed with a whip and showered with spit, was fixed to a cross and died whispering forgiveness on us all.”
We are called to do the same—to be people of conviction, but not harshness. We are called to be steadfast, but not unbending. We are called to be people of truth, but not legalistic. It would be easy to grow cold in this world, and the Bible warns us such will happen, particularly in the last days (Matt. 24:12). We read headlines of war crimes and unimaginable atrocities across the globe, unchecked hatred toward already marginalized communities, increasing suicide rates, killing rampages by armed gunmen, devastating natural disasters wiping out entire populations, and elections that leave us feeling cynical, divided, and angry. Yes, it is easy to grow cold, callused, and numb in the face of such darkness and depravity. Yes, it’s easy to develop a heart of stone.
But as we look this weekend to Jesus’s death and resurrection, instead of growing cold, let us grow warm. Instead of unbending, let us bend. Let us set our faces like flint but let us not set our hearts in the same manner.
But how? How do we do this? We must return to the words of Isaiah 50:7, “But the Lord GOD helps me . . .” It will only be through the Lord’s help that we can set our faces like flint amid a world gone mad, and it will only be with the Lord’s help that our hearts do not turn to stone. Our helper, after all, is the apex paradox to this Good Friday: the chief cornerstone who bore no heart of stone. The apostle Peter looked back to Isaiah, declaring, “For it stands in Scripture: ‘Behold, I am laying in Zion a stone, a cornerstone chosen and precious, and whoever believes in him will not be put to shame” (1 Peter 2:6).
Because Jesus—this chosen and precious cornerstone—helps us, we therefore can set our faces like flint and know that we will not be put to shame. We can still hold fast to our convictions. We can still stand for truth. We can still remain anchored in the belief that God is real and that he is who he says he is. We need not shrink from such things in the face of opposition. But neither can we grow hardened in the face of opposition, to become cruel, jaded, and vindictive.
Let us hold the words of Isaiah and Ezekiel to be true at the same time. After all, we are a people of paradox who serve a God of paradox, a God who set his own face like flint, but whose heart was anything but stone, a God whose heart died whispering forgiveness on us all. Let us do the same, with his help.