It's a beautiful time of year, flowers blooming all around, warm days when the sun manages to come out, birds singing happily. We're perhaps looking forward to a Sunday roast on Easter day, before or after opening Easter eggs. Two days earlier is this time called Good Friday. We might eat hot cross buns, which gives a nod to the fact that the day is something to do with a cross, but in the UK most of us probably don't give much thought for why this Friday is called good. If we do, then it could seem paradoxical, because this 'good' day is about a horrific death.
Of course, Christians understand that it's good because 1988 years ago it was the day when Jesus took on the responsibility for our misdeeds. However, it doesn't really seem a very good way in which it happened. Surely it's a sad day. And what about Jesus? Was it a good day for him? Well, in principle, yes, I think that it was. Jesus was born to die: he knew that before it happened. Despite all the temptations along the way to take another route, or in the Garden of Gethsemane to run away from it altogether, Jesus had made it through to the end and his main purpose in life had come. In some ways he was probably looking forward to it. He just had to get through this day and then the way was clear for him to rejoin his Father a few days later in Heaven. But he had to get through this day first.
Jesus had preached what would become the most famous sermons in the world ever. He had taught what would become the most famous prayer ever. He had healed vast numbers of people, including the lame, blind, deaf and lepers, raised the dead and cast out innumerable demons. He had turned water into wine, calmed a storm, killed a tree instantly by cursing it, fed nine thousand men and further thousands of women and children using 12 loaves of bread and a few fish. He had done more than enough, many times over, to be canonized by the Catholic Church and become Saint Jesus. He had taught the world how to live and trained a team to follow in his footsteps. Yet, the main purpose of his life had not yet been accomplished. He was going to give the whole world, through all time, the opportunity to be saved from Hell. In his name and filled with his Holy Spirit, Christians can now do the things that he did when he was alive; no one can do what he accomplished through his death.
Jesus was born for many reasons, but mainly to die so that we can be born to live.
Although this was the day he had lived for, Jesus knew what was coming. Crucifxion is supposed to one of the most painful ways to die, and it takes a long time. It was reserved for the worst criminals and others of whom the Roman rulers wanted to make an example. Jesus wasn't unique in going through such a death and also the preliminary beatings, although there turned out to be several cycles of that. However, no one in his right mind would look forward to it. He knew though, that it was going to be worse than that. He had never been separated from his Heavenly Father and the Holy Spirit lived in him. Right at the worst part of his agony on the cross, they were going to abandon him and leave him to it. Total separation from God is the state that defines Hell - Jesus was going to have to go through that while on the cross. No wonder the night before he spent some time begging his Father not to let it happen, but in the end he surrendered to his Father's will and went to meet his betrayer, because ultimately it was his will too.
Christians often spend some time on Good Friday contemplating Jesus' time on the cross, and rightly so. It reminds us how much he did for us; it reminds us that sin is so horrendous that this was the only way to deal with it - the bloody death of the Son of God; it reminds us how much the Father loves us that he was willing to send his Son to go through this for us; it reminds us how much Jesus loves us that he was willing to be the one to endure it. It also reminds us that we were born deserving an afterlife in Hell; it reminds us that as Christians we are now set free to live with God in this life and then in Heaven forever, because of what Jesus willingly accomplished for us.
Jesus was God walking on Earth. He was in every sense of the word God. He was one with his Father and filled with the Spirit. In a very real sense, God himself died that first Good Friday. He died physically on the cross as a human and, for a few hours, died to the Father and Spirit. He died so that we can have eternal life now and in Heaven by believing in him and giving our lives to him. Someone wrote to me recently that she wished that Jesus hadn't had to die so horribly; and that's it, isn't it? We all wish that it hadn't had to be like that, Jesus more than anyone the night that he was betrayed. Yet because of the way that Adam and Eve and you and I led our lives, and everyone in between, it had to be. The only useful response is to repent, turn away from our sinful lives and give them to God. If you haven't yet done that, and so don't know God and have the assurance of salvation in your heart, you can find out how to here. If you are already a Christian, then let's spend at least part of this Good Friday falling more in love with the one who gave all so that we can gain all.
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