Good Friday?

Good Friday? We probably take more for granted about people’s knowledge of religious history than we should. The fact is, many people living here in the “bible belt” have never been to church and even more have never read the bible. For people unfamiliar with the history of the Christian faith and Christian theology, the idea of honoring or celebrating a historical date when a religious leader was brutally killed seems inappropriate at the least and perhaps even cruel. Despite the proper theological understanding which most Christians grasp about what we call “Good Friday,” it’s still  bittersweet to commemorate that the “goodness” of this particular Friday is due to God sending a sinless God/man to willingly and sacrificially give His life in order to pay or legally satisfy my sin debt . . . and yours too.

On many times and in many ways Jesus communicated to his disciples that He came to die to give us life and that His death was destined. “I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.” (John 10:11) In John 12 Jesus, though troubled about what his death and separation will be like, likens himself to a kernel of wheat which must die in the ground to produce life, and also that for this hour       he came to earth. To show the kind of death he would experience, he talked about being “lifted up” from the earth that ALL mankind may be drawn to him. How amazing and wonderful it is that “to all who receive him, to those who believe in his name, he gave the right to become children of God.”

Good Friday by itself is incomplete. We do not commemorate a benevolent martyr, but instead the one who 2 days later overcame death and the grave to demonstrate by God’s power that he is “life” and that  through him we too will conquer death with “life”. Jesus offers this relationship, this invitation to enter his family, not as a result of us being “good” or doing something to merit the honor, but simply by trusting him. Would it be a risk for you to tell someone this week what’s so “good” about Jesus? We commemorate one day (Friday) and call it “Good.” Just how good has that one day made your life? Think About It.