What’s so “good” about Jesus Christ’s death? Why would we commemorate such a thing?

Here is what one of Jesus’ first and closest followers, Peter, wrote about his death several years later:  “Christ also suffered for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, in order to bring you to God.” (Peter 3:18, NRSV) Consider the implications of that one little pronoun, “for” in this single sentence. “For” occurs in our English translation 3 times. In the Greek New Testament, however, these are three different words.

• “FOR sins” is “peri” – “concerning” or “about” – We get “perimeter” from this world. This is “about” in terms of “encircling.”
• “once FOR all” is a single Greek word: “hapax” which is, “a single occurrence that won’t happen again.”
• “the righteous FOR the unrighteous” – “huper” – for the sake of, on behalf of.”

There is a lot of theology in those three little prepositions: Jesus suffered to “encircle” our sins, in a “one time act”, a righteous replacement “for your sake.”

All of which is pretty darn “good.”