Why Good Friday Matters

Tomorrow, March 30, 2018, is Good Friday. Kids all around the country will be out for school, enjoying an extra day to play with friends. Families around the globe will be shopping for chocolate, boiling eggs, and traveling in preparation for gatherings with loved ones. My German family members are gathering near Frankfurt, Germany to celebrate the Easter holiday. My uncle Rudiger and my cousin Oliver will be spending time with my Aunt Elke, Cousin Petra and her family. My cousin Andi is sure to be there also with his family. Here in Texas, my Sweet T and I will gather with her folks, Gary and Joyce and sister Sheri and brother David for lunch on Easter Sunday. Mom is spending Easter with friends. Many of us will spend the weekend at Easter Eve and Easter Sunday events.

Why does Good Friday Matter?

Good Friday makes Easter possible. Without the events that took place on Good Friday over 2,000 years ago there can be no Empty Tomb to celebrate, no Resurrection to rejoice in. And yes, Easter, like Christmas, is a Christian religious holiday. At Christmas, Christians rejoice in commemorating the birth of our Lord Jesus. On Easter Sunday, we rejoice, because after His death on Friday, He rose from the grave on Sunday! Good Friday made that possible. Without Good Friday, there would be no rising to celebrate because there would have been no atoning death to rise from.

Good Friday matters because it is the day that the God of all Creation pulled off His plan of salvation through the shed blood of His precious Son on that renowned Cross at Calvary. On Good Friday, all of the promises and all the prophecies were fulfilled. God’s plan to redeem mankind from rebellion, rejection and separation became reality because Jesus, fully God and fully man, bore the punishment for all of our sins past, present, and future upon his Divine, yet human, shoulders. On Good Friday, Jesus completed his mission, carrying out the Father’s will and plan, making right that which had been made wrong.

Good Friday matters because on that day, God’s grace and mercy rained down on all mankind, making possible the impossible, washing what had once been unwashable, making it whiter than snow. Good Friday matters because through Christ’s death on the Cross, you and I can take off our old clothes of unrighteousness and put on our new clothes of Christ’s righteousness.

Good Friday matters because on that day, long ago, God brought light out of darkness and made beauty out of ashes. On that day, Jesus’ blood ran red, defeating death, so we might claim the spoils of victory. On that day, God who sought us, bought us, giving the gift of eternal life for all who would hear, believe, and receive. Good Friday matters because from that day, all blessings flow.

Amen and amen. All praise and glory be to God.

Jesus is the reason for this season too.

Praying that your Easter is filled with love and joy, friends and family. Happy Easter!

Who do you say Jesus is?

Liar, Lunatic, or Lord

I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: ‘I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept His claim to be God.’ That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic—on a level with the man who says he is a poached egg—or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice.  Either this man was, and is, the Son of God: or else a madman or something worse. You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill Him as a demon; or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronising nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.

C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity (1952; Harper Collins: 2001) 51-52.