Is Good Friday Really Good?

The day is called Good Friday.

But is it really good?

I'm sure the day itself, that day so long ago, didn't seem all that good.

The Teacher, the Miracle Worker, the One who healed the lame and blind and deaf and ill, who freed from demons and raised the dead, who fed five thousand and calmed the storm, who wept with the grieving and had dinner with the outcast, who taught of the Kingdom and showed the love of God, the One who is supposed to be Messiah, Son of the Living God, is arrested and beaten and falsely accused and mocked and crucified.

He wears a crown of thorns. He carries His cross. Nails pierce His hands. Darkness descends. People scorn. A sword stabs His side.

My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?

Is it really Good Friday?

The One who healed is wounded.

The One who freed is oppressed.

The One who raised is crushed.

The One who calmed is stricken.

The One who fed is afflicted.

The One who taught is punished.

The One who wept and ate is pierced.

The One who loved dies.

Is it really Good Friday?

Yet, it is God’s will that He should suffer. This day of death and darkness is God’s will. God’s will that is good, perfect, and pleasing.

Jesus said His food, the very thing that sustains Him, is to do the Father’s will and to finish the Father’s work. So He prays that the Father’s will be done. And that will is done.

As He is pierced for our transgression, as He is oppressed to bring us freedom, as He is crushed for our iniquities, as He is stricken for our sins, as He is afflicted for our going astray, as He is punished to bring us peace, as He is wounded to bring us healing, as He suffers and sheds His blood, pouring out His life and love, He says, “It is finished.”

That good, pleasing, perfect will has been carried out and completed.

Atonement is made.

The ransom is paid.

And there is the promise of the third day.

This day of death and darkness makes way for a day of life and light. So we may have life and light.

We are told that He who began a good work in us will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus. Jesus makes the it-is-finished work of the cross, our Father’s good, pleasing, and perfect will, a reality in our lives today.

The day is called Good Friday. The day the Father’s good will was finished, the day His good work in us began.

Yes, it is Good Friday.

The post Is Good Friday Really Good? first appeared on The Overflowing 

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