By: Mike Kelly
Retired Pastor
I know Easter’s behind us already, but there is so much going on in those last few days that I need more time to unpack it. So, I’m extending the Holy Day another week or two.
Let’s look into “Good Friday.” Talk about a misnomer. “Good” hardly seems the correct word to use to describe the day Jesus was beaten, whipped, embarrassed, and finally crucified.
I did some research and discovered that it’s called “Good” because this event is seen as a holy act fulfilling God’s plan for redemption, not because the event itself was good, with “good” deriving from Old English for “holy” or “God’s Friday.”
I kind of like “God’s Friday.” Maybe we can start a movement to change what the Friday before Easter is called.
We know the story. (If you don’t, watch Mel Gibson’s “The Passion of the Christ.”) Christ is tried by Roman Procurator Porcius Festus and the Governor of Judea, Pontius Pilate, and they can’t really find anything he is guilty of except ticking off a bunch of the Jewish leadership.
But Pilate finally gives in to the incessant whining of the Jews and orders Jesus beaten and crucified. Little did they know that history would make them infamous for their part in all this.
Jesus, the Son of God, has come for this express purpose. To die for the sin of the world. 1 John 2:2 (ESV): “He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world.”
Propitiation means a sacrifice that satisfies God’s wrath against sin, turning away His judgment and allowing for our forgiveness and restored fellowship with God.
In short, Jesus died on that cross on that Friday to pay the penalty for our sins. Not his, ours! 2 Corinthians 5:21: “For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become right with God.”
If this were a stage play, the curtain would descend and Act 1 would end. We’d all take a break and return for Act 2. Act 2 would open with the empty tomb, but let’s not get ahead of ourselves.
Jesus’ death on that cross on God’s Friday was the Godhead’s greatest gift to us. Ever! God didn’t need to save us. He didn’t need us at all. While we were his special creation, we are still his creation.
He could recreate many more special creations if he were to choose to do so. The idea of shedding the Son’s blood for our salvation is nuts … or as God describes it, Divine Love.
What is our response to such intense, extreme love? What can we possibly do to even begin to pay him back for such a great sacrifice? There’s a quote by a famous missionary to Africa, Dr. David Livingstone, that reads “People talk of the sacrifice I have made in spending so much of my life in Africa.
Can that be called a sacrifice which is simply paid back as a small part of a great debt owing to our God, which we can never repay?
All these are nothing when compared with the glory which shall be revealed in and for us. I never made a sacrifice.”
Let that be the attitude of our hearts as we live each day for His Glory.
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Mike Kelly is the founding pastor of Bryan’s Grace Community Church (retired) and Board Chairman of Bryan’s Sanctuary Homeless Shelter and Williams County’s Compassion (free) Medical Clinic.