A Good Friday Thought

It all began on a Friday a little less than 2,000 years ago, and to be sure, not just any ordinary Friday. Citizens and visitors to Jerusalem were eagerly celebrating Passover, the annual feast commemorating Israel’s freedom from 400 years of slavery. The evening before, around candlelit tables dressed with Passover foods, fathers and mothers had been retelling the Exodus story to their children as they recalled how YAHWEH had delivered Israel. How the blood of sacrificed lambs had been applied to the entrances of every Hebrew home so that the angel of death might pass over every covered doorway; and, how God had outplayed Pharaoh, delivering his people from bondage to this cruel taskmaster.

Every year Israel gathered in Jerusalem to recall their freedom. And so, in late March or early April somewhere between A.D 30 and A.D. 33, people flooded Jerusalem and the surrounding countryside to celebrate Passover, with one substantial difference. Unlike the first lambs sacrificed by ancient Israel to stave off God’s wrath upon Pharaoh and his land, God sacrificed his own Lamb to mollify his judgment on all sin and all sinners.

What we could never do for ourselves, God did for us!

Today, Good Friday, we meditate on the extravagant benefits of Christ’s great sacrifice and unthinkable crucifixion. As Isaiah foretold: “Our sins did it to him, our sins ripped and tore and crushed him — our sins! He took the punishment that made us whole. Through his bruises, we get healed.” (Isaiah 53:5, MSG) Through his death on the cross, Christ purchased our forgiveness and peace and redemption. Now that’s great news!

That Friday was a miserable and sorrowful day for Jesus’ first followers, but as they were about to learn, Sunday was coming!