Good Friday 2019

26 As they were eating, Jesus took bread, blessed and broke it, gave it to the disciples, and said, “Take and eat it; this is My body.” 27 Then He took a cup, and after giving thanks, He gave it to them and said, “Drink from it, all of you. 28 For this is My blood that establishes the covenant; it is shed for many for the forgiveness of sins. 29 But I tell you, from this moment I will not drink of this fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it in a new way in My Father’s kingdom with you.” 30 After singing psalms, they went out to the Mount of Olives. 
Matthew 26:26-30 

If you are reading this post at the time of its publishing, it will be Good Friday 2019. It is a day that confuses some people because they wonder why it is that Christians celebrate the day when their Lord and Savior dies. Yes, we can point to the resurrection as a reason for why we rejoice on Good Friday, but truly that is not what makes Good Friday good. Before I get to why we rejoice on Good Friday, I want to first level set who we are as a people.

To be blunt, we are all sinners and rebels of God and the consequence for breaking God’s law, for our sin, is death (Rom 6:23). And this is not something that is new, nor was something that came out of the Mosaic law. In fact, many are too quick to judge that the Mosaic law as too harsh, when in fact it was an example of mercy and grace. How? Well, there was a law before the Mosaic law, one that was established at creation. In Gen 2:17, God tells Adam and Eve in the garden that they “must not eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for on the day you eat it, you will certainly die.” This was the law of the land and anyone who broke God’s law would be met with certain death.

And who of us can say that we will be able to escape this punishment? There is not a single person who is righteous, no one who does good always. And even if we do good for some time, at the moment when we sin, we are guilty of all the law (James 1:10). Ezekiel even muses on the fact the question, “when a righteous person turns from his righteousness and practices iniquity, committing the same detestable acts that the wicked do, will he live?” (Ezekiel 18:24a) He immediately provides the answer “None of the righteous acts he did will be remembered. He will die because of the treachery he has engaged in and the sin he has committed.” (Ezekiel 18:24b)

The greatest mass killer is not cancer, or Hitler, or texting on the road; the greatest killer of man is our sin nature. Which leads us back to the question of why Good Friday is good. It is truly good because in the death of Christ on the cross we are granted eternal life. His blood, which was shed on the cross, was “shed many for the forgiveness of sins”. While we all deserved death, Christ’s death has brought us life. We are reminded of the magnitude of our sins on this day, reflecting on the fact that Jesus died for our sins and for none of his own. But our sorrow is turned into joy knowing that His death propitiates the wrath of God by atoning for our sins so that we may be justified in the eyes of God for those who repent from their sins with godly sorrow and place their faith in the Son. Peter writes, “For Christ also suffered for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, that He might bring you to God” (1 Peter 3:18). That is why this day is good, that is why we call it Good Friday!

Grace and Peace,
Pastor Alex

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