Good Friday 2021

 

So this is Good Friday, the day that we remember with solemn awe and deep sorrow Christ’s passion and death. We who know the presence of God in our lives and have committed ourselves to Him grieve with the faithful ones who remained with Him at the cross.

They were not perfect people. They were as human as the ones who mocked and scourged him. But they knew Jesus. He died for all. He knew every sin humankind had ever committed as He hung there. Then, as now, His followers loved Him, even as others hated Him.

“But he was pierced for our transgressions,
    he was crushed for our iniquities;
the punishment that brought us peace was on him,
    and by his wounds we are healed.”

On the cross Jesus died for all sins, from the Garden of Eden to the present day.

Jesus knew every pain, every sin, every hurt, every shame, individual, corporate, national, world -wide, for all history and yet to come. Can we imagine horror of such magnitude?

Beyond this, the intimate communion of Father, Son and Holy Spirit was removed.

“And about the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice, saying, “Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?” that is, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Matthew 27:46)

 

Death. Judgement. Hell. What evil deserves. What the world and each one of us should be facing – if not for the cross.

Good Friday was not the end of the story. Thankfully, we have so much to celebrate on Easter Sunday.

But that is for another day.

Many of the cultures of our world were built upon the principles of Christianity, yet we see a forgetfulness of where our societies have come from, to our peril.

“For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened.”

“They exchanged the truth about God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised. Amen.” (Romans 1: 21 and 25).

This Good Friday, as we contemplate the cross, we mourn with Jesus – for our own sins and failings and for the evils we see in the world around us. It is a call, not for despair, but for repentance, faith and prayer.