Good Friday
I used to be baffled by the church calling the day of Christ's crucifixion "Good Friday." Even taking into account the fact that Jesus rose on Easter it seemed that his death on Friday was a horrible thing. These days it makes much more sense to me than it did once. Slowly God has made me understand how Jesus did not go to the cross unwillingly, but that he went there knowing what he was doing, and he did it because he loves me and you.
He went to the cross willingly, he laid down his life willingly. As Jesus himself said in John 10:14-18
14I am the good shepherd. I know my own and my own know me, 15just as the Father knows me and I know the Father; and I lay down my life for the sheep. 16And I have other sheep that are not of this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice. So there will be one flock, one shepherd. 17For this reason the Father loves me, because I lay down my life that I may take it up again. 18No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again. This charge I have received from my Father." He died for us, but he did not have to do it. He did it out of love. He did it to save us from our sins, to save us from our selves. He called us to life from death, we were dead in our sins, unable to come to him, unable to do anything at all to save ourselves, and he called us back into life through our baptism, where we died with him. By his undeserved death, a death he did not need to suffer because he was not born in sin and he never committed a single sin, he became a substitute for us, he took on himself the death that we were all in. Then, through his resurrection he brought us back to life, eternal life with him. Best of all, in the last day we will all be raised again bodily! We will have a new, perfect and glorified body and live forever! What could be better than that? This is surely a
Good Friday!Ken Collins gives a little background to the name of the day.