Good Friday

Source: bibleartists.wordpress.com

Today I'm writing this on Good Friday and I’m reminded of Jesus’ words on the cross, “It Is finished” (John 19: 30). Those 3 words are probably the most powerful words he ever spoke during his time here on Earth.


I believe what Jesus was saying to us is this. “While my time on Earth as a man is finished, I’m really just getting started.”  Getting started with what? He’s telling us that these are the things he just getting started:

• Getting started with a plan for salvation
• Getting started with showing what it means to be human and the need for suffering
• Getting started with a lifetime of forgiveness for all of our sins
• Getting started with showing us how to forgive others
• Getting started with showing us an unending mercy
• Getting started with showing us the way home
• Getting started healing the brokenness inside of us
• Getting started leading us to others who don’t know who he even is
• Getting started teaching us what it truly means to follow him
• Getting started showing us what was behind the veil that was torn in two when he died on the cross!

2,000 years ago, when Jesus was dying on the cross, he looked to his left, and he looked to his right and he saw 2 robbers who were crucified on each side of him, and what he saw was all of humanity. He saw you and he saw me in those 2 men and they represented our free will.


And so we ask ourselves, when Jesus looks at us, which one are we going to be? Do we choose to look at Jesus and say “Jesus, you are nothing but a fraud and I choose to turn my back on you” or, do we become like Dismas, (better know as The Good Thief) and turn to Jesus and say, “Jesus, I believe you are The Son of Man and you died for me, so that I might be with you in paradise”? I know which one I choose.

No greater love the world has ever known than what Jesus did for us. So many times when I’m praying, I say, “I love you Jesus” and what always follows is, “…but I know that my love pales in comparison to the love you have for me.” I say this because it’s true. It’s as if my love is the size of one tiny grain of sand on a beach in comparison to rest of the sand on the entire beach. So when I think of it in that way, it’s easy to understand how he forgives me so quickly for the things I do that are sinful (Psalm 30: For His anger is but for a moment, His favor is for a lifetime)

One thing, which I mention in the list above, is the curtain being torn in two. Many people don't realize or understand that the curtain that scripture refers to, hung in the temple and it separated man from the Holy of Holies. That curtain was made of a very thick material and it was so thick that it was impossible for a man to tear it. So when men saw that it was torn, they realized that no man could have torn it in half and at that moment, understood who they had just put to death on the cross, that it really was the Son of God. And the fact that it was torn in two, meant that we would no longer be separated from God ever again.


Today I started to wonder why this day is called Good Friday. What I learned is that the origin of the term is unclear, but what I understand is that this day is simply put, Good. It’s good for you, it’s good for me, it’s good for the world because it is when we remember that on this day, the sins of the entire world were carried by one man, who redeemed all of us and he gave up his life by having himself nailed to a cross, not just for some, but for every single one of us.


Happy Good Friday. God is Good!