I have always been amazed at the irony of this term, “Good Friday.” It certainly qualifies as a “good” day. On this day we remember the most significant and pivotal event in the history of humans. It is the day that God carried out His plan to provide the way for us all to have a relationship with Him. A relationship that would radically transform the life and eternal destiny of anyone who accepted and engaged in that relationship. Clearly a “good” day.
The irony, of course, is that this “good” day was also the
most grizzly, horrible day the world has ever seen. It is the day that the only perfect man who ever lived was put to
death in one of the most violent, painful, torturous ways that humans have ever
devised. He was not just the only
perfect man ever to walk the earth. He
literally defined what it means to be “good,” to be loving, to be generous and
selfless. He actually personified perfection in a human existence. And then He was killed.
I’ve heard some say Jesus had to die this type of
death, the most torturous of deaths. I don’t know if that is true or
not. What I do know, is that the
horrific physical nature of His death does demonstrate the magnitude of what
was done for us on the cross. It was
the most loving and selfless thing that could possibly happen. Perfection taking my sins and yours upon
Himself, and therefore suffering spiritual death in our place. Doing this meant separation from the Father for the first
time in all eternity. I can't imagine that pain, that had never been felt before, of Father and Son being separated for the first time. And all this, so that WE COULD enter the presence of the Father for the
first time.
