What's So Good About Good Friday?
Friday, March 21, 2008, 09:44 AM
Good Friday is a problem. First, there is the name, we call it good, but no one called it good then. Then there's what happened on that Friday; they killed Jesus. Everything looked so different on Palm Sunday; the crowds cheered for Jesus. Even Monday and Tuesday were very different from Friday. Jesus took charge; He cleared the temple and confounded his adversaries. Even the events of Wednesday and Thursday have their share of good times and warm feelings. Jesus and his friends share a family Passover together, but everything changed on Friday. Good Friday is a problem.The big problem is the cross. Many people like the teachings of Jesus; His miracles astound and attract. Everyone likes the stories of his good deeds and loving example. That's part of the Christian message, but it's not the heart of it. "We preach Christ and him crucified," the Bible declares. "We glory in the cross," we sing. Good Friday is the day of the cross!
On the surface, it is hard to find anything good about Good Friday. It was a bad day in every way until you see it as God saw it. Good Friday is only as good as our understanding of God's redemption plan.
Tony Compolo captured that message in his classic sermon "It's Friday, but Sunday is Coming." Perhaps you have heard Compolo on television. In his sermon, Compolo insists that we will never understand Good Friday unless you remember what happens next. Here is a summary Of Compolo’s idea: Friday was a long day. It actually started the night before. One event led non-stop into the other. After the meal in the upper room, Jesus and his men went to a secluded spot on the Mt. of Olives. Jesus prayed late into the night. His men tried to join him, but the late hour and the hectic schedule over took them and they fell asleep. Suddenly in the middle of the night, probably in the wee hours of the morning, the disciples awoke to shouts and the clanging steel of swords and shields. At first, they probably thought it was a dream. It wasn't! Soldiers arrested Jesus and they hauled him before the Jewish high priest. Before sun up, a special called meeting of the Jewish council interrogated him. Witnesses said they had heard Jesus blaspheme the name of God and the Holy Temple. In fact, they said, he threatened to destroy the temple and rebuild it in three days; all of the charges were false. The witnesses had been paid to offer their testimony, but all of that was beside the point because the whole early morning secret trial process was illegal from start to finish. But Jesus never protested, He didn't strike back, He didn't talk back. "Like a lamb before the shearer and sheep before the slaughter," He didn't say a word. There was nothing good about the way Friday started.
I'll bet you've had some days like that, when you woke up on the wrong side of the bed. Everything seems to go wrong and it seems the whole world is out to get you. You've been lied to and lied about. Maybe it was at work or even at home, but you get blamed. The fact that you tried to do what was right didn't seem to matter; somebody still accused you.
The worst part of Good Friday, for Jesus, wasn't what his adversaries did. A person can handle that; you expect it from your enemies. Jesus was arrested in Gethsemane because a friend, one of his own, betrayed him. For thirty pieces of silver, the price of a common slave, Judas turned against him. He stepped out of the crowd, pretending to greet Jesus; he gave him a hug and kissed him on the cheek. The very act of friendship turned into an act of treachery. How cynical can you get? Then the other friends turn tail and run at the first sign of trouble. Even Peter who had pledged his undying devotion to Jesus hours before would, before morning, repeatedly claim that he didn't even know Jesus. On Friday, Jesus stood alone, falsely accused, betrayed, and abandoned.
Maybe that's what happened to you. Maybe you found out that all the nice things and warm words of your friends were nothing more than a cynical attempt to get on your good side. When that happens, think of Jesus and Good Friday. Remember it may be Friday, but Sunday is coming!
By sunrise on Jesus' last Friday, the pace quickened. The betrayal, the phony trial, the false accusations soon turned physical. Soldiers mock him, they rough him up for sport, and they press a make shift crown of thorns on his head, the blood flows down his brow. They laugh, they parade him to Pilate's palace in a purple robe, "Some king you are," they taunt. They didn't stop with words that Friday morning. Pilate knew the charges were trumped up, but to satisfy the officials he ordered his soldiers to beat Jesus. And the Roman soldiers had just the tool to do it; the Roman cat of nine tails was a long leather whip with multiple ends that were embedded with nails, pieces of bone and glass. Thirty-nine times the soldiers laid into Jesus' back with that whip, flesh turned to hamburger; the pain was unimaginable. It probably seemed like it would never end. It was Friday, but Sunday was coming.
When the beating stopped, the really bad stuff began. "Crucify him!" the crowds cried; the fickle crowd even chose Barabbas, a murderer and thief, over Jesus. Most of you have heard the story often enough to know that the crucifixion was not a pretty picture. Remember the furor that greeted Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ two years ago. Critics objected to the violence and blood, but most didn't understand the reality. Crucifixion wasn't just execution, it was public torture.
At nine o'clock that Friday morning, the soldiers laid him on the wood, then they drove iron spikes through his hands and feet, lifted the beam, and dropped it into a hole. For six hours, six long hot hours, Jesus hung there suspended between heaven and earth dying minute by minute, hour by hour. At his feet, soldiers continued the taunts, the crowds jeered and His mother and friends stood back in horror; their hearts broken.
At noon on Friday, the sky over Jerusalem turned strangely dark and the earth shook. A thief on the next cross cried out, "Remember me when you come to your throne." Jesus was innocent; no one else was. It was not for his sins that he was on that cross; it was for ours.
It may be Friday, but don't forget, Sunday is coming!
[ 40 comments ] ( 868 views ) | permalink |
( 3.5 / 311 )
