Good Friday or Black Friday?

When I was younger I remember questioning the name “Good Friday,” instead thinking it should be called “Black Friday.”

In my thinking at the time there was nothing good about it.

On that eventful day our Lord and Savior was maliciously charged with blasphemy by Jewish leaders, handled over to Roman authorities for prosecution, beaten, scourged, forced to carry his own execution device while mocked and heckled by onlookers, nailed to that cross, and then heckled and ridiculed some more while painfully hanging pitifully from the cross for hours – all while enduring real alienation from God His Father.

Eventually, his indescribable pain was finally relieved when death claimed Him. SPOILER ALERT:  Death didn’t have him long.

Black Friday was indeed the darkest day in human history when The One who was sinless, who preached love and forgiveness, and who wanted nothing more than to share God’s love and mercy for all, was killed in the most barbaric and brutal method known at the time.

Even as a young Christian raised in the church I knew that many called it Good Friday because it was the day Jesus saved humanity from its sins and made it possible for us to intercede with God.

But it was Easter and Christ’s resurrection that brought us salvation, I remember thinking, because if Christ hadn’t risen from the dead there would be no Christianity (I Corinthians 15:14), no possibility of a direct relationship with God (Ephesians 2:18), no eternal life (John 3:16).

As I’ve pondered on Good Friday since, the reverse of what I previously thought is also true – just as there would be no Good Friday observance without Easter, there would be no Easter without the sorrowful sequence of events that transpired on Good Friday.

Just as darkness comes before the dawn, repentance comes before forgiveness, and the pain of childbirth comes before a newborn is delivered, according to God’s plan his Son, a blameless man who’d led a perfect life, had to be sacrificed before mankind could receive atonement (Romans 8:34).

The day Christ was sacrificed may well be known today as “Black Friday” – if there had been no resurrection and no promise of eternal life.  But very few in modern times would know it as anything more than a historic footnote when a homeless Jewish rabbi was used as a useful pawn between Jewish leaders and their Roman captors.

This Good Friday let’s all take comfort in the knowledge that thanks to the selfless sacrifice made possible by a loving God over 2,000 years ago, we need not be alienated from Him. God has a purpose for every life, and while death may be inevitable, it isn’t final and we need not fear it. (1 Corinthians 15: 55-57).

Thanks for reading Dean Riffs. Welcome to those who love American liberty, free enterprise, and who believe God has blessed our country. For those who believe in open borders, safe spaces, and who think free speech is hate speech, move on – there’s nothing here for you to see.

 

Photo source: billtammeus.typepad.com, Windows On My World, billygraham.org 

Copyright 2018, Dean A. George©

They Live and We Live Because He Lives!

Losing friends and family to death is heartbreaking; losing a parent or spouse is devastating.

As Christians we enjoy the promise that if the deceased was a believer, we will at some point in the future see them again face to face. It’s that promise that comforts us in our grief, acts as a spiritual salve for our suffering and gives us endearing hope that however bleak our loss may seem, we can anticipate joyfully reuniting one day with lost loved ones.

Our family lost its patriarch Easter week last year, and despite the knowledge that his warrior’s heart was growing fainter, we clung to the emotional life buoy that he would thwart death’s advance one more time. We believed it because he believed it.

The day before he passed, our 83-year-old Dad told my sister he honestly thought he wasn’t going to die, that he just had to rest awhile, regain some weight that he’d lost and he’d be back to work soon running his concrete finishing business.

Dad loved to work, and everyone that knew him respected him for his work ethic. Sadly, there was no working around two heart attacks that night. With the aid of a ventilator his heart was still working the next morning, but he had no pulse.

His instructions had been clear in such an event: he wanted nothing to do with life support or hospice, no postponing the inevitable if his once tireless body had finally worn out.

Dad was at peace with dying because he knew what millions of other faithful servants before him had known: because our Lord beat sin and death through His selfless act of love on the cross at Calvary, there was no reason to fear death. Nor was there any reason to dread it or run from it.

Somehow it seemed appropriate that the funeral services celebrating Dad’s life were held at 11 a.m. on Good Friday. It was at that hour over 2,000 years ago that Jesus hung in agony from a wooden cross on behalf of an unbelieving and undeserving humanity. A few hours later the blameless one who had been mocked as King of the Jews was carefully removed from that cruel Roman cross, wrapped in donated linens and mournfully placed in a borrowed grave.

After Jesus fulfilled his Father’s plan to offer humanity a spiritual life buoy by reconciling us to Him through the forgiveness of our sins, what happened next demonstrates why our Dad didn’t fear dying. On that third day following his scourging and crucifixion, Christ’s rising from the dead is why none of us have to fear dying – today, tomorrow or ever.

Easter is a joyful reminder that though we shed involuntary tears when losing loved ones, the seemingly insurmountable abyss separating us from them is temporary. The promise of seeing them again isn’t a fairy tale or a mental illusion meant to give us temporary solace in our grief.

God’s love for us is greater than anything in this world. Mercifully, even the inevitable sting of death isn’t permanent to anyone who trusts in the risen Christ.

Thanks for reading Dean Riffs. For those who love American liberty, free enterprise, and who believe God has blessed our country, welcome. For those who believe in open borders, safe spaces, and who tolerate everything but free speech and conservative ideals, move on – there’s nothing here for you to see. 

The post was written Easter weekend, 2016 while returning from Dad’s funeral in Florida

Copyright 2017, Dean A. George©

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