Good Friday?

Being a day ahead of Canada, We’re celebrating Good Friday today. We’ve got some great church services planned; expecting a lot of visitors this weekend. I went for coffee yesterday with one of our pastors and we passed a fish market on the way. There was a huge line-up stretching out of the store with people waiting to buy fish because of a religious tradition that forbids eating meat on this day. That store has actually been posting a sign for the last few weeks saying they will be open today – while all other stores are closed! Stores are selling so much chocolate you’d think every woman, man, and child was having PMS at the same time – or maybe we’re all pregnant – there’s got to be something to bring on such a strong craving. Statistics show that this weekend and Christmas are the two times that the largest number of people show up in church; so as churches, we need to make sure we take the opportunity to present the Gospel message clearly and in a relevant way! Good Friday is a national holiday in many nations of the world. So why the big deal? Two thousand years ago a man was sold by one of his friends into the hands of a group that had been plotting for a long while how they would murder him, He was disowned by another friend and abandoned by most of the rest (by the way, if Peter disowned Jesus, where were the rest of the disciples at the time? Why was Peter there with the crowd and the rest were not to be found? We usually think of Peter as the one who denied Jesus but what about the rest? Do a little research and you may find an answer) He was beaten, tortured, disfigured beyond recognition, mocked, ridiculed, then killed in the most painful way people had thought of to that day. I actually wonder sometimes if Jesus embraced the cross because he knew it was the end. I wonder if he embraced the cross because the torture had been so severe it made the cross look welcome. Just a thought. And I wonder, what’s so good about that? What’s so good about that day that we celebrate it today, 2000 years later? Are we some sort of sick generation that revels in the torment and death of another man? I think not. The Bible tells us it actually pleased the Father for Jesus to suffer (The only place I can find where it pleased God to see anyone suffer – Isa 53:10 – so if any of you think God is happy with your suffering, I challenge you to find Scriptural evidence to support that thought!!!) but even in this case, the joy is not in the suffering but in what the suffering would accomplish. The Father was pleased to see his Son suffer because through it, we would not have to pay the price for sin. He loved us so much that He was happy to let His Son go through that to save us! I don’t know about you, but it sure makes me think twice when I take it so lightly. The other day I heard someone singing a Christmas song and while those around me had strange looks on their faces, I thought “How fitting.” At Christmas we celebrate the start of what Good Friday and Easter Sunday finished! What can be more fitting than remembering the whole deal together? And yes, it truly is a Good Friday – not because of what Jesus went through, but because of what His suffering accomplished for us.