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But what makes this week holy is something else. It is the fact that something happened back then and there, in space and in time, something so shattering that the grinding wheels of fate were stopped by it and death is now no longer allowed to have the final word.

Because this is true, we say that the atheist astronomer Carl Sagan was wrong when he described the earth, glimpsed from outer space, as "a lonely speck floating in the enveloping cosmic darkness." Of course, we know that all is not right with the world nor indeed with ourselves. Good Friday does not permit the kind of unscrupulous optimism usually found on our Easter greeting cards. But it does declare that at the heart of the universe there is a personal presence, a God who has chosen not to remain in his heaven, cocooned within himself, but who has become a part of the world he has made, and taken upon himself the burden of loving it back to himself. This he has done as a humbly born baby in a manger, as a suffering man on a cross.

We are invited by this holiest day of Holy Week to believe beyond all doubt that the lonely speck Sagan saw from the telescope in space is a visited planet, that there is redemption in and beyond, though not apart from, suffering and pain, that decisions we make here and now can have consequences that will last forever, that time is a God-given opportunity to learn to love, and that love is the one thing we experience in time that remains in eternity.

Timothy George is dean of Beeson Divinity School of Samford University and an executive editor of Christianity Today. This article originally appeared in The Birmingham News of Alabama.

Copyright © 2004 Christianity Today. Click for reprint information.

Our Easter page includes sections on Holy Week, Palm Sunday, Good Friday, and Reflections on the Resurrection.

Holy Week articles include:

The Cross | Quotations to stir heart and mind during Holy Week. (April 12, 2001)

Amassed Media: Talk About the Passion | The best online resources about the history, significance, and experience of Holy Week (April 19, 2000)

Maundy Thursday | Part one of "The Great Reversal," a CT Classic article (April 20, 2000)

Good Friday | Part two of "The Great Reversal," a CT Classic article (April 20, 2000)

Holy Saturday | Part three of "The Great Reversal," a CT Classic article (April 20, 2000)

Easter Sunday | Part four of "The Great Reversal," a CT Classic article (April 20, 2000)

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April (Web-only) 2004, Vol. 48