Something Happened

The world is broken, shattered, rebellious, unkind and seeped in violence and evil.  The news is so bleak and seems bleaker by the day.  Does God care?  O God, do something!

And as I sat in the early evening shadows last night, a nail in my hand in a silent church service, the answer came to me. 

And I realized yes, He already did.  Good Friday.

Jesus did not just enter our suffering or share in it, He suffered for us.  On the cross, He whispered, "I love you too much to let you live that way."  That is the gospel.

Christmas declares that He came.  Good Friday shows us why.

Because of Good Friday, we can live forever.  Easter just underlines that.  Because there would be no Easter, if not for Good Friday.

Good Friday is not celebrated to remind us of our wrongdoing, wrong being, and guilt.  God forgave us through the sacrifice of His Son.  The debt has been paid.  

The cross was not an accident.  Or Plan B.  But the sacrifice of Jesus was foretold from almost 800 years before Christ -- proclaimed not just predicted by the prophet Isaiah.

Surely he has borne our griefs,

    and carried our sorrows;

yet we esteemed him stricken,

    smitten by God and afflicted.

But he was wounded for our transgressions;

he was crushed for our iniquities;

upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace,

and with his stripes we are haled.

All we like sheep have gone astray;

we have turned --everyone-- to his own way;

and the LORD has laid on him

         the iniquity of us all.

                    Isaiah 53. 4-6

It is a humbling truth that Jesus died not because of my goodness, but for my wrongdoing. That is not something we can grasp.  "Oh, you didn't have to do that for me."

"Yes, I did," He replies.

Something happened that day that changed the world.  That changes -- present tense-- everything about each one of us.

God says, "I love you more than you can know."