What’s so ‘Good’ about Friday?
by David Luke, Pastor, 22 Mar 2007
To an onlooker it must seem strange that Christians ‘celebrate’ what they call ‘Good Friday.’ After all this day is the day on which Jesus Christ, the founder of their faith, died. It perhaps seems ironic that they should call it ‘good.’ It seems more apt to think of it like the Scandinavians who call it ‘Long Friday’ or the Germans who refer to it as the ‘Friday of Lamentation.’
When we read through the gospel accounts of the death of Jesus we cannot miss the awfulness of the scene presented to us. We see an innocent man betrayed by a close friend. We see him violently abused and humiliated by soldiers in a manner reminiscent of recent events in Abu Ghraib. We see a sham trial in which a murderer is set free by a politically calculating judge. We then read of how he is put to death like a common criminal by crucifixion, one of the most inhumane means of execution known to man. There on the cross he is offered no dignity in death but mocked and scorned. It is an horrific scene. Yet the Bible presents this to us as ‘good.’ Indeed one of Jesus’ followers, the apostle Paul, goes so far as to speak of how he boasts in the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ. (Gal 6:14)
So how can we call this horrific event ‘good’? How can Jesus’ followers end up boasting of what happened on that day?
Let the apostle Paul explain. He writes to the Corinthians and explains the death of Jesus in this way, ‘God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.’ (2 Corinthians 5:21)
Who put Jesus on the cross? Paul tells us here that ultimately God did this. Yes, Jesus was physically put on the cross by his enemies but ultimately it was God who handed him over to sinful men that they might do this. (Acts 2:23) Indeed the Bible speaks of God’s pleasure in sending His Son to die on the cross. (Colossians 1:19,20) It pleased God to surrender His Son into the hands of wicked men knowing that they would crucify him. In the first instance the death of Jesus upon the cross is good because it is God’s will that this should happen and God’s will is both good and pleasing to Him.
In giving His Son in this way God punished our sin in His innocent Son — ‘God made him who knew no sin to be sin for us’ — so that we might appear righteous in His sight — ‘so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.’ Here is the ‘good’ of Jesus’ death upon the cross. God punishes our sin in His own Son so that we might appear righteous in His sight. In what has been described as the ‘great exchange’ Jesus takes our sin and we receive His righteousness. The death of Jesus upon the cross is good because of the good that flows from it. It deals once and for all with the sin that keeps us estranged from God.
Why does God allow His Son to be punished for our sin in this way? It is the profound mystery of the love of God for sinful man. The Bible tells us quite simply that ‘God so loved the world that he gave his only Son that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.’ (John 3:16) The death of Jesus upon the cross is good because it demonstrates to us the deep, deep love of God for sinners.
When we consider what was accomplished by the death of Jesus upon the cross on that first Friday we can see why it is called ‘Good Friday’. For here in the giving of His Son for our sin God has dealt with the sin that separates us from Him, and that will indeed separate us from Him for all eternity. In doing so He unlocks the gate of heaven to us so that we might rejoice in His presence for ever more. The cross brings about an absolute and eternal good.
Good Friday is indeed ‘good’ as we rejoice, in the good that God has accomplished through the loving surrender of His Son to a cross for our sin.
David Luke, ‘What’s so ‘Good’ about Friday?’, 22 Mar 2007, Gilnahirk Baptist Church Web site. http://www.gilnahirkbaptist.org.uk/resources/christianity/goodfriday.php (accessed 21 Nov 2008).
