Good Friday

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The Scriptures say that, just before His death, Jesus was in a garden, praying. This wasn’t a serene moment with flowers and butterflies. Outside the garden, Judas was bringing the soldiers to come and get Him. Jesus’ disciples couldn’t seem to stay awake. For Jesus Himself, He was flat upon His face, so distressed that blood was coming out of Him like sweat. He was praying for an alternative. He was praying that, if there was another way, the Father would allow that other way.

But there wasn’t, and the guards came for Him.

One of the most understated verses in the Bible is John 19:1, where it says, “Then Pilate took Jesus and flogged him.” The readers of that day would have known what that meant, and they would have cringed in horror. We pass it by. The Passion of the Christ did it justice, and it’s hard to watch. To flog someone, they would use a cat of nine tails, which is a whip with metal balls and hooks weaved into the straps. It was designed to strip away the skin and break the bones. Many people died from the flogging alone. Jesus survived it. Once His skin was battered and torn, they put a robe against His exposed flesh and forced Him to carry His own cross upon that bloody back.

We call it Good Friday. We call it good that Jesus walked across the city, His blood flowing onto the street behind Him. We call it good when He was nailed upon that Cross and lifted up into the sun to bake until He was dead.

Most Christians can quote to you why it happened. They say He died to forgive us of our sin. That’s true. I wonder if we’ve ever questioned what sin really means, if God had to come to earth and endure that punishment for it to be forgiven.

Do you have any idea what sin means? Do you know why Jesus had to have the skin scraped off his back in order for it to be wash clean?

May I suggest that our sin is more grave of a matter than we normally think? May I suggest that it is more vile, more offensive, more wretched than we would like to admit? Frankly, if I were a good person who just needed a little help to finally reach Heaven, Jesus could just stretch out His arm to me. If I were but a mile away, He could come and carry me. But I was so far away, so utterly and completely incapable of even getting close, that He had to chase me into death itself.

Your little lies here and there are more terrible than you think. Your lust is more offensive than you want to consider. Your pride is the very sort of thing that got Satan thrown out of heaven, it was so terrible, and you think it’s just part of being human. Maybe. Maybe it is, but that doesn’t make it okay.

We deserve death for what we have done. We deserve to die for our sins. That’s the point. If someone was going to take our punishment, it was a punishment of death. If someone was going to take our sins upon Himself and pay the price for them, that price was death!

And God Himself was the only one who could pay that price for us, because He’s the only one who didn’t owe it Himself.

God died. God died that day, and we call it Good Friday, because He was doing it for us. He took the worst atrocity in human history and uses it so that we can be forgiven.

Some of you will be going to church for the first time in a long time this Easter. Some of you go every Sunday, but it’s just something you do. Some of you are really into the whole religion thing, and you think you’re a good person. Some of you are saved, but you need to be reminded of the Gospel, the good news, that we can be forgiven. That we are so evil that it took the death of God for us to be forgiven, but that God loved us so much that He died to make that happen.

Dwell on this. Dwell upon the Cross. Let its meaning sink in. Then repent of those sins that put Him there. And believe that He was there for you. Trust in Him, and you will be forgiven.