Easter Is Coming

I know for me, it always gets a little melancholy around Good Friday. Sometimes the gravity of the day sinks in and I think about what the day represents. It is indeed a good day, but it is a sad day. It’s the day our Savior took His undeserved cross to The Skull. What a mockery of justice that day was. Supposed righteousness meets fear of man and culminates in the most unjust act ever to occur in the history of the universe. Man spitting on God's face and pounding pieces of steel through His flesh. Unthinkable...

But we must think about it. We must feel the weight of it. It’s our sin that pounded those nails in. Our sin that beat the Savior and spit in His face. Our sin that disfigured His body so bad He was not recognizable as a man. And it was our sin that brought the full weight of God’s wrath upon Christ’s shoulders causing Him to scream in pain and torment. Our sin did this. Our sin required these events.

Yet we are told that Jesus endured these events, 

“for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.” - Hebrews 12:2

How could Christ endure such pain and suffering with joy? What is this joy? My friend, Jesus took great joy in God’s plan of redemption to bring a lost and wayward people back to Himself. Christ endured all the wrath because of the joy that was in front of Him. The joy of doing His Father’s will. The joy of saving us and bringing us back into the family. Not because we are so wonderful, but because He is so loving. What love is this!

This is why we call it “Good Friday.” It is a very good day. It’s the day our sins were washed and we were made clean. It’s the day we were bought and paid for by One that was both the purchaser and the price. He purchased us with Himself and made us His own. So feel the weight of today. It’s a hard truth. Satan laughs in apparent victory as his plan seems to have succeeded. But as we weep, we do not weep as those who have no hope.

“Death cannot keep its prey - Jesus my savior! He tore the bars away - Jesus my Lord!”

Soon Satan will the hear a dreadful sound of victory blast through his halls as death itself begins to work backwards. He will see that he holds no power over his Creator and that he is no match for the One that created the laws of life and death itself. He will feel the dread spread over him as Christ splinters the doors of death and commands them never again to be rebuilt for His people. This dreadful day will turn to glory as Jesus steps out of the grave. The darkness cannot hide its face because Christ has conquered the darkness. 

I know it may seem dark now my friends. You may be like the disciples, grieving and wondering that the plan is in all of this. You may not know what the morning brings. Yet in all the pain and in all the dark, one life-changing truth remains: Easter is coming my friends...Easter is coming.