What’s so good about ‘Good Friday?’

Have you ever asked yourself, “Why is it called ‘Good’ Friday?”

Reading what happened on ‘Good Friday’ it seems far from good. An innocent man has just been declared guilty in front of a baying mob, he is dragged before two further courts who insult him, and beat him up in a really violent manner. He is abandoned by all of his friends who he has lived in community with for the last 3 years and one of his closest friends even denies him vehemently with an expletive ridden denial. He is then tortured further and made to carry the cross he will be nailed to, naked, in full public view.

But despite all the horror of that day, for us, this is really good news.

If you spend any time reading the newspapers, there is very little good news. They are full of conflict, wars and people generally being really nasty to each other. Our lives can be like these newspapers with a few stories about good things we have done, but even though we appear fairly good on the surface, underneath we can be full of bad news; hurtful and lustful thoughts, pride envy and greed. The bible calls this ‘sin’.

We have been separated from God because he really can’t bear to read our ‘newspaper’ He is Holy, pure and good and we are far from that.

The bible says that

“All have sinned and fall short of God’s standard”

(Romans 3 v 23)

but also tragically, further on it says that

“The wages of sin is death”

(Romans 6 v 23).

As you are probably aware, God has revealed Himself in the bible as One, but in 3 persons (The trinity).

The Father sent the son ‘Jesus’ on a rescue mission and that is why ‘Good Friday’ is so good. Jesus took our place; he died the death we should have died. The bible again says

“For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.”

(2 Corinthians 5 v 21)

This is often called ‘The great exchange’ our ‘sin’ for his ‘goodness’. He took All our sin on that first Good Friday.

All we need to do is repent (say sorry) and believe.

We can now become followers of Jesus, because if we truly understand what happened we will never be the same again and we will be accepted by God forever and not just that, but in relationship with Him.

Now I call that really