Today is Good Friday.
And, I’ve always thought what a horrible title for today. The horrific, bloody, ripping torture that Jesus endured that day was anything but good.
How can a day that slaughtered an innocent man be good?
How can a day that brought people together to watch a man die an agonizing death while they cheered on and gambled over the bloody rags he wore be good?
How could watching your naked bruised, battered, ripped beyond recognition, son writhe in pain be good?
How could exchanging a murder’s freedom for an innocent person who went around doing miracles and healing people be good?
It’s perspective.
We look up to the cross and view the atrocities he suffered. We use our human eyes to see the unfairness, wrongness and awfulness of that day.
We envision the physical pain. We imagine his mother’s and friend’s anguish. There was nothing but suffering, distress, misery and woe at the foot of the cross and none of these are good.
Jesus looked down from the cross and pictured the loves of his life – all mankind. His supernatural eyes saw the chains that would be broke, the hearts that would be restored and changed lives.
He saw he was the one and only redemptive piece of the puzzle for mankind.
He knew before he was held in the manger for the first time that this would take place. He was driven his whole life for this moment.
Because, this day, Good Friday had to happen in order for the three day later spectacular, life-world changing event to take place. Easter. Glorious Easter. When all the wrongs were made right, where all the disappointments were corrected, where the pasts were pointed to the future. Where life never ends and where the price has been paid because there was and is no one who could afford the entrance fee to heaven.
So, depending on your perspective and where you are at the cross, today we celebrate a good day. A Good Friday that had the power to stop the world from turning for a split second, right all the wrongs and set man on a course for eternal life.
May you have a life changing blessed Easter Sunday.
