Good Friday

The day we call Good Friday began as an ordinary day right after the start of a holiday week.  Jerusalem bustled with busyness and business as its inhabitants and visitors cleaned up from the big Passover meal and readied for the next day’s special Sabbath.  Only twelve hours of daylight were available to accomplish all that needed to be done.  For some that was shopping; for others it was selling, but for a few it was getting rid of the guy who had caused them so much grief for the past three years.  If the Jewish chief priest, teachers of the law, and elders could just get the Roman governor, Pilate, to sentence Jesus of Nazareth to death, then surely their world would be better off.  To bolster their chances of success, they “persuaded the crowd [at the annual customary prisoner release] to ask for Barabbas [a rebel and murderer] and to have Jesus executed”(Matt 27:20).   All went according to plan, and by mid morning, the man they were so envious of and so anxious about was hanging on a cross between two thieves.  

But not long later, the smug feelings of security and success were dampened by the eerie darkness that encompassed the earth at noon, for “the sun stopped shining”(Lk 23:45), and three hours later, when the light turned back on, the ground beneath their feet “shaked, rattled, and rolled” as the man’s three final words left his mouth and his spirit left his body.  “It is finished.” 

Right then, right down the road, in the heart of the temple, the sixty feet high, four inch thick curtain that separated the Holy of Holies from the rest of the room was ripped in half from top to bottom filling those inside with terror and wonder.  Everyone around town joined in amazement as “tombs broke open and the bodies of many holy people who had died were raised to life”(Mt 27:52).   By then, all of Jerusalem—Pilate, priest, Pharisee, soldier, and citizen—would have agreed that this was not an ordinary day.

It could not be, for this was day the Creator of the universe had planned for an entire eternity.  Every second was plotted.  Every minute was mapped out.  No character involved was a random actor without reason.  The arrest, trial, conviction, and crucifixion of Christ were not events spiraling out of control which just happened to end up in something God used for good; no, each action of every hour was divinely orchestrated and purposefully planned.  As Pilate was told straight up, “You would have no power over me if it were not given to you from above”(Jn 19:18), and more than most, he seemed to sense the truth spoken by Jesus a few weeks before, “No one takes my life from me, but I lay it down of my own accord.  I lay down my life—only to take it up again”(Jn 10:17-18).

Good Friday. 

We say it’s good because of what God did—painfully, horrifically, unfathomably splitting Himself apart so He could bring us together.  Paying the debt of death we owed.  Taking the shame of sin we should suffer.  Bearing the brutality and burden of our rebellion so we could repent, return, and be redeemed.  “Once you were alienated from God and were enemies in your minds because of your evil behavior.  But now God has reconciled you by Christ’s physical body through death to present you holy in his sight, without blemish and free from accusation”(Col 1:21-22).

Good Friday.

There will never be another day like it, and no day will ever be the same because of it.

Amen and Amen.