Amazing, Astonishing, Overwhelmingly Wonderful Friday!

If I told you I sometimes struggle during the week approaching Easter Sunday, would you think less of me? I mean, after all, I am a child of God. I have been saved by grace. I am delivered. I have been made new. I am set free. By His wounds and by the very celebration of that infamous Third Day, I am healed. So, why do I feel sadness…even heartache, as we annually approach the remembrance of such a defining moment in the lives of those who know Jesus Christ?

In all honesty, I can’t stand that my sin caused Someone so perfect, so incredibly Holy, so innocent, so undeserving of such a vile death - to pay the ultimate price for wretched things I have done and most assuredly will do during this one life I have been given. It bothers me. I want to change it desperately. I want to rectify it. Make it right somehow. Maybe even go so far as to intentionally dedicate all my human determination just to live out ONE DAY without my natural bent toward sin - foolishly believing that if I try “really hard,” I just might accomplish holiness. But with all certainty, I will fail. I won’t achieve it no matter how much effort I put into it. This nature of mine will always be present, until I see The Remedy for my earthly battle face to face.

If I tried to analyze why Easter bothers me, I need to be a little more precise in my thinking. It’s not the day of Easter that surrounds me with sadness. It’s Good Friday that is difficult for me to experience. After all, according to John 19, we know that this is the day that Jesus was whipped. The day a crown of thorns were pressed firmly into His head. The moment in time He was slapped in the face and spit upon. Flogged. Beaten. The day He was crucified.

While others around Him had so much to say, so much to shout, scream, and chant, Jesus uttered few words that day. He had a minimal exchange of words with a wishy-washy leader named Pilate. He tried to share words of comfort with His mother Mary and His beloved disciple John, while the weight of His body sagged with gravity from a wooden cross – the very cross in which He had just struggled to carry on His own innocent shoulders. With little energy left in a ravaged, dying body, He simply uttered, “I’m thirsty.” Being offered a saturated sponge with sour wine for relief, Jesus died with His last words being, “It is finished.” Hallelujah!! Hallelujah!!

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I love the honest questions kids ask. No embarrassment. No shame - just simply wanting an answer to satisfy a wonder in their mind. One day, I had a 6th grader ask me, “If Jesus was crucified on Good Friday, why in the world do we call it ‘good?’ It seems very bad to me. Why don’t we call it Bad Friday?” What a great question!!! Something we have all probably wondered at one time or another in our journey with God. I replied to the student that labeling it “Bad Friday” wouldn’t work very well. It just doesn’t describe the day accurately. It does in a sense - because the torturous acts that Jesus endured were horrendous. No one would argue that. But if He hadn’t suffered in the ways that He did, I would be left in darkness, a life-long prisoner of my own sin. He did it so I could have life, and have life to the fullest. And that is GOOD!!! Yet, maybe the name “Good Friday” doesn’t cut it. What Jesus did that day is GREAT!! It is AWESOME!! It is AMAZING!! ASTONISHING!! WONDERFUL!! It is OVERWHELMING!! It is BEAUTIFUL!! And He did this for me! He did this for you! And that is what makes it so “good.” Because He is good. He was good then and He is good now.

Reminding myself of all this “Good Stuff” this morning, leads me to feel not so sad anymore…not so heartbroken. There is much to celebrate. Much to praise. And so much to be exceedingly grateful for.

The servant grew up before God—a scrawny seedling,
a scrubby plant in a parched field. There was nothing attractive about him,
nothing to cause us to take a second look. He was looked down on and passed over,
a man who suffered, who knew pain firsthand. One look at him and people turned away.
We looked down on him, thought he was scum. But the fact is, it was our pains he carried—
our disfigurements, all the things wrong with us. We thought he brought it on himself,
that God was punishing him for his own failures. But it was our sins that did that to him,
that ripped and tore and crushed him—our sins! He took the punishment, and that made us whole.
Through his bruises we get healed. We're all like sheep who've wandered off and gotten lost.
We've all done our own thing, gone our own way. And God has piled all our sins, everything we've done wrong,
on him, on him.

Isaiah 53:2-6 The Message