It’s called Good Friday…but those who were there didn’t see anything good. At least, none of those who spent the last three years in his circle. Oh, how their thoughts must have swirled in their heads. How many times had he said it? All this talk about being betrayed and killed…it just didn’t make sense. And that time he talked about the temple being destroyed and then rebuilt in three days? And what about that childhood story of Jonah being in the fish for three days? What did any of that have to do with what now unfolded before them? What did he mean when he said that he would be lifted up so that he could draw all people to him?
It’s called Good Friday…so, what was good about it? It was a day of death. A day that witnessed the shedding of innocent blood. A day that, though prophesied and written about for centuries, caught those who were his closest friends off guard. A day where the sacrificial Lamb of God bore humanity’s transgressions…all of it. Every fiber of Jesus’ existence bearing every sin. Every. Single. One. That lie you told three years ago. Yes, Jesus bore that. That impure thought from yesterday. That was laid on the Son of God. That time you cheated on the math final in your senior year of high school. Yep, placed on the King of kings. The gossip that you helped spread that separated friends. Yes, that too. But it wasn’t just your sins. It was your neighbor’s. It was your boss’s. It was sin of that annoying guy at the gym. It was your father’s, brother’s, nephew’s, cousin’s, former roommate. (IYKYK) It was all added to the pile of vile wretchedness that, in a moment, caused a Son to experience an unbearable soul-crushing weight.
It’s called Good Friday…and the battle for humanity has leveled up. The sky has darkened. In the middle of the day. For three hours. It’s not a solar eclipse. Clouds are not blocking the sun’s rays. It is the blackness of sin on a totally global scale. Satan and his minions are warming up for the grand finale. They can taste the impending victory. Triumph is in their grasp. It won’t be long now. When the moment arrives, three words are spoken. Barely audible. Separated by dying gasps of air. Three words…It is finished. And with that, the earth shakes, the veil is torn, and the Son of God is dead.
It’s called Good Friday…and the enemy, though he doesn’t understand those final three words, revels in victory. He took down the first Adam with a tree. And in the move of a lifetime, he took down the second Adam with…you guessed it, a tree. But he has an uneasy feeling this time around. It’s not like that first round. Though he is too arrogant to stop and give it any serious thought, there is something about those three words. It is finished. What do they mean?
It’s called Good Friday…because in just three days, those three words are going to take on a whole new meaning. It is finished. The redemptive work orchestrated by God the Father and fulfilled by God the Son is done. The betrayal. The anguish. The suffering. The death. All of it. The record of debt that stood against us? It is finished. The sin that lead to condemnation? It is finished. The sting of death? It is finished. Grave’s victory? It is finished.
It’s called Good Friday…because it is.
Faith, Leadership, and History 