Furthermore Jesus was innocent. He had done no wrong to deserve such punishment. Even Pilate, the Roman Governor, testified: “I find no basis for a charge against this man.” (Luke 23:4) And so on Good Friday we celebrate the execution of an innocent man who was abandoned by his friends and sent to his death on trumped-up charges. What’s so good about that?

To answer the question we need to go back to Jesus’ birth when the angel announced to the shepherds: “Do not be afraid. I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is Christ the Lord.” (Luke 2:10-11) Good Friday is good because it is the culmination of the good news that the angels brought to the shepherds that first Christmas morning. We have all sinned and broken God’s law. And therefore we are all in need of a Savior. Jesus came into our world to be that Savior, and he accomplished the work of salvation by dying on the cross for us.

The New Testament refers to Jesus as the “Passover lamb who was sacrificed for us.” (1 Corinthians 5:7) The Passover lamb was an animal without blemish or defect. In the same way Jesus is the perfect Son of God. When Jesus died on the cross, he was not dying for his own sins, because he had no sin. He was dying for our sins; he was dying in our place.

The good news announced by the angels at Christmas was fulfilled in Christ’s death for us on Good Friday. What’s so good about Friday? Jesus, who was born to be the Savior, completed his work of salvation on the cross. It was a good work, and God made a way of salvation for all who believe. “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” (John 3:16)

Of course three days later, the story gets even better. But that would be peeking ahead to Easter!

Click here for more Easter related posts.

“God declares to us that Jesus Christ, who once had his side pierced, today has his heart open, as it were, that we may have assurance of the love that he bears us; that as he once had his arms fastened to the cross, now he has them wide open to draw us to himself; and that as once he shed his blood, so today he wishes us to be plunged within it. So, when God invites us so sweetly and Jesus Christ sets before us the fruit of his death and passion, . . . let us all come to take our stand with our Lord Jesus Christ.” (John Calvin, Sermons on Isaiah’s Prophecy of the Death and Passion of Christ, p. 82)

Thank you, Lord, for the wide open arms of Christ my Savior.

HT: Ray Ortlund

“GOOD FRIDAY” – by George Herbert (Notice how each stanza roughly resembles the shape of a cross.)

                Oh my chief good,
How shall I measure out thy blood?
How shall I count what thee befell,
                And each grief tell?

                Shall I thy woes
Number according to thy foes?
Or, since one star show’d thy first breath,
                Shall all thy death?

                Or shall each leaf,
Which falls in Autumn, score¹ a grief?
Or cannot leaves, but fruit, be sign,
                Of the true vine?

                Then let each hour
Of my whole life one grief devour;
That thy distress through all may run,
                And be my sun.

                  Or rather let
My several sins their sorrows get;
That, as each beast his cure doth know,
                  Each sin may so.

_____
1. score. Mark, as in counting.

“THE PASSION” – by George Herbert

Since blood is fittest, Lord, to write
Thy sorrows in, and bloody fight;
My heart hath store; write there, where in
One box doth lie both ink and sin:

That when sin spies so many foes,
Thy whips, thy nails, thy wounds, thy woes,
All come to lodge there, sin may say,
No room for me, and fly away.

Sin being gone, oh fill the place,
And keep possession with thy grace;
Lest sin take courage and return,
And all the writings blot or burn.

 
Source (for poems and footnotes): George Herbert: The Country Parson, The Temple (The Classics of Western Spirituality; 1981)

Related posts:
    • What’s So Good about Friday?
    • What is Good Friday?
    • Good Friday Poem by Christina Rossetti.

Click here for more poems by George Herbert.
Click here for more posts relating to the Cross.
Click here for more Easter posts.
Click here for poems by Ray Fowler.

How much did Jesus know about the cross? How much did he know about what would happen when he arrived in Jerusalem? Did he know about all the events that would take place between Palm Sunday and Easter, or did he just have a general knowledge that he was going to suffer and die?

The person asking the question felt that Jesus’ determination to walk the road to Jerusalem would mean that much more to us if we could say with confidence that Jesus knew everything that lay ahead for him.

It is an interesting question, and theologically delves into the mystery of the incarnation. Jesus Christ is the eternal Son of God who became fully man without ceasing at the same time to be fully God. Jesus possessed both a divine nature and human nature in one person. So how does one reconcile Jesus’ omniscience as God with his growth and development as a human being?

The Scriptures indicate that Jesus retained his divine omniscience even in the incarnation but chose not to exercise it at certain times. So where did Jesus get his knowledge of things to come? Some of his knowledge of future events may have come through his personal study of Scripture, some by direct revelation from the Father in prayer, and some by his divine attribute of omniscience. We find examples of all three of these avenues in Jesus’ life, and it may be that various combinations of the three contributed to his knowledge at different times.

As Jesus made his way toward Jerusalem and the cross, the Scriptures tell us that he knew many details of what lay ahead for him. He knew that he must suffer and be rejected, and that he must be killed and on the third day be raised to life. (Luke 9:22) He knew that he would be betrayed. (Luke 9:44) He knew that he would be handed over to the Gentiles and that they would mock him, insult him, spit on him, flog him and kill him. (Luke 18:31)

Many of these things Jesus could have known simply from his study of the Scriptures. But Jesus also knew other details that would have required a different type of knowledge. For example, Jesus knew from the beginning who would not believe and who would betray him. (John 6:64) Jesus knew in advance that Peter would deny him three times. (John 13:38) And when the soldiers came for him in the garden, John tells us that Jesus knew everything that was going to happen to him. (John 18:4) He could only have known such things by direct revelation from the Father or by drawing on his omniscience as the Son of God.

So, how much did Jesus know about the cross as he walked toward Jerusalem? Did he know every single detail that would take place that week? Possibly, but we cannot say for sure. It is all part of the mystery of the incarnation.

But if we step back further in time, before his incarnation, Jesus most certainly knew every detail that would take place leading up to the cross. Drawing fully from his omniscience in his pre-incarnate state, Jesus knew everything that he would suffer in Jerusalem. Yet he still chose to come and die for lost sinners like you and me. He is “the Lamb that was slain from the creation of the world.” (Revelation 13:8) How much did Jesus know about the cross? We may rest assured that when Jesus left the glories of heaven to come to earth, he did so with full knowledge of the cross and all that it would entail.

“EASTER” – by Ray Fowler

Weave a crown of thorns; spit on love incarnate;
Stretch his flesh against the splintered surface and
Strike the nail’s head. Crushed for our sins,
The Savior breathes ever slower.

Breath of Spirit pierces the tomb’s dark chamber;
Blinding flash illumines the corpse now rising,
Standing, dancing, joyfully living love for
Those who had slain him.

________________________________________
Click here for technical notes on the poem “Easter.”
Click here for more poems by Ray Fowler.

Today is Holy Saturday. It is a day when Christians around the world find themselves caught between remembering the crucifixion on Good Friday and celebrating the resurrection on Easter Sunday. It is a day of mixed emotions. It is a day of waiting and anticipation.

It is good to remember that we are merely caught between the observances of these two days. On that first Holy Saturday, Jesus’ followers were caught between the actual events of Good Friday and Easter. They had to go through the full day with Jesus their Lord and Master crucifed, dead and buried. On Easter we celebrate the empty tomb. But on that holy and sacred day the tomb of Jesus was woefully full.

Jesus’ followers did not know that Easter was coming (although they should have!). We do, and that makes all the difference. We live on this side of the resurrection. On this Holy Saturday and every Holy Saturday we serve a risen Savior.

So let us rejoice in Christ who died and rose again. But let us also remember this day when Jesus’ body lay buried in the tomb. Let us feel for the disciples whose hope was buried along with him. And let us marvel at the incongruent wonder of God in the ground.

“GOOD FRIDAY” – by Christina G. Rossetti

Am I a stone, and not a sheep,
That I can stand, O Christ, beneath Thy cross,
To number drop by drop Thy Blood’s slow loss,
And yet not weep?

Not so those women loved
Who with exceeding grief lamented Thee;
Not so fallen Peter weeping bitterly;
Not so the thief was moved;

Not so the Sun and Moon
Which hid their faces in a starless sky.
A horror of great darkness at broad noon –
I, only I.

Yet give not o’er
But seek Thy sheep, true Shepherd of the flock;
Greater than Moses, turn and look once more
And smite a rock.

______________________________________________________________

(Note: Christina Rossetti is perhaps best known for her Christmas poem, “In the Bleak Midwinter”.)

Click here for Good Friday Poems by George Herbert.
Click here for A Wintry Sonnet by Christina Rossetti.
Click here for poems by Ray Fowler.

I could never myself believe in God if it were not for the cross. The only God I believe in is the One Nietzsche ridiculed as ‘God on the cross’. In the real world of pain, how could one worship a God who was immune to it? I have entered many Buddhist temples in different Asian countries and stood respectfully before the statue of Buddha, his legs crossed, arms folded, eyes closed, the ghost of a smile playing round his mouth, a remote look on his face, detached from the agonies of the world. But each time after awhile I have had to turn away. And in imagination, I have turned instead to that lonely, twisted, tortured figure on the cross, nails through his hands and feet, back lacerated, limbs wrenched, brow bleeding from thorn pricks, mouth dry and intolerably thirsty, plunged in God-forsaken darkness. That is the God for me! He laid aside his immunity to pain. He entered our world of flesh and blood, tears and death. He suffered for us. Our sufferings become more manageable in the light of his. There is still a question mark against human suffering, but over it we boldly stamp another mark, the cross which symbolizes divine suffering. ‘The cross of Christ … is God’s only self justification in such a world’ as ours.¹ (John Stott, The Cross of Christ, pp. 335-336)

¹ P.T. Forsyth, Justification of God, p. 32.

“The cross of Christ is the most revolutionary thing ever to appear among men.

“The cross of the Roman times knew no compromise; it never made concessions. It won all its arguments by killing its opponent and silencing him for good. It spared not Christ, but slew Him the same as the rest. He was alive when they hung Him on that cross and completely dead when they took him down six hours later …

“After Christ was risen from the dead the apostles went out to preach His message, and what they preached was the cross … The radical message of the cross transformed Saul of Tarsus and changed him from a persecutor of Christians to a tender believer and an apostle of the faith. Its power changed bad men into good ones. It shook off the long bondage of paganism and altered completely the whole moral and mental outlook of the Western world.

“All this it did and continued to do as long as it was permitted to remain what it had been originally, a cross. Its power departed when it was changed from a thing of death to a thing of beauty. When men made of it a symbol, hung it around their necks as an ornament … then it became at best a weak emblem … As such it is revered today by millions who know absolutely nothing about its power …

“Christ said: ‘If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me.’ (Luke 9:23) So the cross not only brings Christ’s life to an end, it ends also the first life, the old life, of every one of His true followers. It destroys the old pattern … in the believer’s life, and brings it to an end. Then the God who raised Christ from the dead raises the believer and a new life begins. This, and nothing less, is true Christianity …

“We must do something about the cross, and one of two things only we can do – flee it or die upon it. And if we should be so foolhardy as to flee we shall by that act put away the faith of our fathers and make of Christianity something other than it is …

“If we are wise we will do what Jesus did: endure the cross and despise its shame for the joy that is set before us … The cross will cut into our lives where it hurts worst, sparing neither us nor our carefully cultivated reputations. It will defeat us and bring our selfish lives to an end. Only then can we rise in fullness of life to establish a pattern of living wholly new and free and full of good works.

“The changed attitude toward the cross that we see … proves not that God has changed, nor that Christ has eased up on His demand that we carry the cross; it means rather that current Christianity has moved away from the standards of the New Testament. So far have we moved indeed that it may take nothing short of a new reformation to restore the cross to its right place in the theology and life of the Church.”