Good Friday

Today was such a horrible day in human history–the day we killed and executed God. If there is anything humans have ever done that would make us deserving of eternal hell, today fits the bill. If anyone needs proof that we are really a depraved people, the fact that we would kill the Son of God, the One who gave us life in creation and gives eternal life freely, demonstrates just how far we have fallen.

Humanity cannot say that this day was a good day for our species.

It is a paradox that the very event that makes us most deserving of hell is the event that must have happened to free us from it. Who can understand the mind of the Lord? How unsearchable are his ways!

I believe God shows us through the cross that salvation cannot come by how moral we are. Salvation came through the most wicked event imaginable.

How about for God? Was this a good day for him? He watched as the sons of men willfully and cheerfully destroyed his most precious gift to us. He painfully lost the only son He has ever begotten. God loved the world so much that He gave away his only begotten son.

And that’s the only reason why we can call today “good.” Today happened out of God’s love for humanity and to restore all things to himself. As devastating as it was, it was happening for a wonderful purpose obscured to us. Even Jesus’ own disciples didn’t understand until after it all had happened. This was something only Jesus and His Father fully understood. And then, it seems as if Jesus didn’t really fully understand it all either, when He said “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” Perhaps at this point in time, only the Father knew full well what He was doing and what was happening. Everyone else was lost–last of all, His Son.

The only way today is good is if Jesus’ death must have happened to give us right standing with God. I was reminded this week that Jesus’ death wasn’t enough to give us that gift. He had to be victorious over sin (which he accomplished in the living of His perfect life), and he had to be thereby victorious over death, the penalty for sin (which he accomplished by rising again). Jesus was the true victor in His sinless life, when He triumphantly rose again, and amazingly even when He died.

It is interesting to me that when Jesus died, there was no doubt that He would rise again, because of His sinless life, the power of God, and the faithfulness of God to bring forth what He had promised all along. Yet, when it all was happening, there was plenty of doubt, grief, confusion, pain, darkness, suffering. Perhaps if we are willing to call this Friday “Good Friday,” we should be able to call everything else we face in life, no matter how difficult and painful, as good in this same manner. Not that it was good that we killed the Messiah, or that our pain/suffering today is in itself good, but that there can be no doubt that God is indeed working all things for His good purposes if we are now children of God, brothers and sisters of Jesus. And for this reason, we can call every day a “good” day.

Thank you, Jesus, for your great love for us. Even while we were yet sinners, you died for us. “Good” seems like too weak of a word to describe today. But I don’t think there is a word that does it justice.