Good Friday

Good Friday comes every year, but Good Friday 2020 is a little different.  Churches are struggling with how they can gather while still following social distancing.  Society has shut down.  For many that means job loss and possibly worse – the loss of a whole business.  Throw in quarantine with all the kids at home and there might be a few questions, a few doubts.

Good Friday marks the final day of the season of Lent.  In this last word from the cross we see that Jesus spoke a word of trust.  This might be the last thing that we would expect from Jesus’ lips after the ordeal that he went through.  From noon to 3 PM Jesus hung on the cross suffering crucifixion, but more than that, he was suffering the agony of hell.  The flood of our sinfulness rose up and like a mighty river swamped our Savior.  God made him to be sin for us so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.  Jesus’ had paid for our sin, he defeated the devil, now the last enemy to fall was death.  Jesus faced death perfectly trusting in his heavenly Father.

But how could he?  Talk about breaking a promise!  Didn’t the Father let Jesus down that week.  It started ok, I guess, with Palm Sunday, but Maundy Thursday ended in chains.  Good Friday started with two verdicts of death – 1st a condemnation from the Jews, and then another from the gutless Roman governor.  By all accounts it looked like Jesus failed.  It looked like the Father had let him down.

One of my favorite memories is throwing my children up in the air.  The endless giggles are intoxicating.  The joy a parents feels watching a child have fun is priceless.  I think that’s why Disney will survive this latest economic downturn.  When God the Father let Jesus fall – rather, when God let Jesus be skewered to a cross, he wasn’t just letting him fall… hard.   He was making sure that we never would.  When Jesus died, every promise of our redemption was fulfilled.  All that was left, was for us to see the proof on Easter.

Want to hear more – including how God keeps his promises to those who doubt?  Watch our Good Friday sermon.