I’m posting this on Easter Sunday, but the crucifixion on Good Friday afternoon and the resurrection at dawn on Easter Sunday are both parts of the same gift from God so I’ll cover them both in this post. There is a song I love that links those events so well and I want to share those lyrics with you.
“They all walked away, nothing to say. They’d just lost their dearest friend. All that he said; now he was dead. So this is the way it would end. The dreams that they dreamed were not what they seemed, now that he was dead and gone. The garden; the jail; the hammer; the nail; how could a night be so long? Then came the morning; night turned into day. The stone was rolled away. Hope rose with the dawn. Then came the morning; shadows vanished before the sun. Death had lost and life had won; for morning had come. The angel; the star; the kings from afar; the wedding; the water; the wine; now it was done. They’d taken her son; wasted before his time. She knew it was true. She watched him die too. She heard them call him just a man, but deep in her heart she knew from the start somehow her son would live again. Then came the morning; night turned into day. The stone was rolled away. Hope rose with the dawn. Then came the morning; shadows vanished before the sun. Death had lost and life had won, for morning had come.”
As a young Christian, I couldn’t understand why the day Jesus died on the cross is called Good Friday. It seems such a dark day in human history and it was certainly a sad day for his mother and his disciples. What Jesus went through that day is beyond human comprehension.
The tremendous physical pain would be bad enough, but he bore upon himself the sins of all mankind.. If that wasn’t enough, His heavenly Father had to turn away from Him because of all of that sin. For the first time, He was separated from His Father and that was so painful it made Jesus cry out in anguish. What is good about that day? The answer came when Jesus said, “It is finished,” and an earthquake tore the heavy curtain in the temple from top to bottom that separated us from God’s presence giving us direct access to our heavenly Father in the name of his beloved Son. We can bring our prayers and our praise directly to God and He can walk and commune with us as His sons and daughters. THAT IS THE GOOD IN GOOD FRIDAY. .
Then the light of God’s love penetrated the darkness on the morning of the third day – Easter Sunday. Jesus had paid the price for our sins on the cross and then proved His gift of eternal life by leaving the tomb and appearing to His followers. Of all of the sights I saw on my Holy Land trip in 1964, the Garden Tomb in Jerusalem is my most beloved memory. I have never felt closer to Jesus than I did kneeling in prayer at the entrance of that empty tomb. I could almost hear the angel say, “He is not here. He has risen.”
Do you feel like you are going through a very dark time? Don’t give up in despair. That darkness will soon be penetrated by the light of God’s love, just put your faith In Him and not only will things get brighter, He might even show you something good that has come from this dark time. The enemy might mean it for evil, but God can and will use it for good. God is with us even in our darkest hours.