Good Friday

It was God's Friday when God gifted His Son, Jesus, as the sacrificial Lamb. He prayerfully endured through betrayal to the brutal cross.

Jesus was clearly in charge of the timing. More than once He had escaped efforts to stone or snare Him. His time had not yet come. He did exactly as His Father instructed though He clearly knew what lay ahead as The Passover Lamb.

We often meditate on the high cost Jesus paid. Yes, God the Son drank the cup of wrath (the Passover Cup) for us, identifying it as His blood that would be spilled in place of ours. Our Creator who had put on flesh paid a horrid price for our salvation.

But there is another price: God the Father's.

Can we know what pain ripped the Father's heart to watch His sinless Son suffer? God knew there would be many who would spurn and spit on His beloved, His lavish gift. He knew many who would wear His Son's name as a religious badge without being changed by His life giving blood.

What does a holy Father do when His Son literally takes on sin and death for the whole world?  As Christ's body was torn and Father heard Jesus ask why He had left Him alone in agony, I imagine His own heart ripped in anguish. This was not merely a child getting a shot in a doctor's office. The pain was exponentially more complex, even unimaginable.

Both Father and Son gave the supreme gift of love. Both were torn. But that's not all. God caused the heavy temple curtain to be ripped from top to bottom, revealing it was now possible to come into His presence.

It was a horrible day. But it was a good day.

FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION

If God didn't hesitate to put everything on the line for us, embracing our condition and exposing himself to the worst by sending his own Son, is there anything else he wouldn't gladly and freely do for us?   (Romans 8:32, The Message)

Quietly allow the love that hung Jesus on the cross to penetrate your heart and bring you into God's healing presence.

Oh and then thank Him. Thank Him with all your heart, soul, mind and strength!