Good Friday Tears

Easter! I love Christmas, but Easter creates a tangible joy in my spirit. But there’s no Easter without Good Friday. There’s no resurrection without death and a funeral. And not only did Jesus have to die, but He also had to die the MOST torturous, gruesome, humiliating death any human has ever faced.

Remember Good Friday. Take time to read the account of the cross. Visualize the rods with which Jesus was beaten. Visualize the faces of the people doing the beating. Try to imagine what a crown of three-inch thorns feels like being pressed into your skull. The weight of a rugged cross on the exposed skin of a whipped, flesh-stripped back. Read the story but visualize every detail. (Matthew 27:26-66, Mark 15:15-47, Luke 23:24-56, John 19:16-42)

Let yourself cry. Mourn. Today represents the day your Jesus died. For you. He did it all for you.

The wrath of God can be defined as complete separation from the attributes and presence of God. Separation from His Goodness, Mercy, Sovereignty, Love, Beauty, Peace—the list goes on and on. These attributes are on limited display at all times even in our sinful world because we are and live in God’s creation. His presence still dwells with His people. His attributes still reflected in His creation. So, we have never experienced God’s full wrath, yet. We have no inkling to encapsulate the horror and torture of that reality. Maybe the depravity of a concentration camp or the bloody hell of a Roman colosseum, but even there God made Himself known among His people.

One of the greatest mysteries our minds cannot fathom is Christ fully knowing and experiencing the separation that is the full wrath of God. When the sky darkened and the earth shook that first Good Friday, Jesus fully knew the total wrath of God. In fully taking our destined and deserved punishment, He gave us a way to choose a different destiny even though He never committed one sin to deserve ours. He is the penultimate, spotless Lamb of God.

Christ’s quest was to save us from God’s wrath, but He had to defeat Death to do it. He couldn’t just taste it and survive. He couldn’t come within an inch of His life and live to tell the story. To defeat Death, He had to surrender completely to its power then rise victorious after what looked like utter defeat.

Oh, the battle that must have raged in the belly of eternity during those days between Good Friday and Easter! Sometimes I envision heaven as an opportunity to sit and hear the best stories the universe has ever known finally retold in the light of complete truth. Better than any theatre experience we can imagine. I want to hear this story of the middle one day—the story of how death was defeated.

Until that day, I can only imagine with my limited human mind the events between burial and resurrection, and it leaves me with more questions than answers. What I do know is there is no glorious victory of Easter resurrection without the gory suffering of a Good Friday death and burial. You can’t have one without the other.

You can’t have one without the other. Yet don’t we always try?

Jesus’ children will never know God’s wrath because He made another path for them if they choose to take it. But He did not remove all forms of death from this world. Though the Source of death has been defeated, the web of roots runs deep and far throughout the fabric of our world. We will not escape its presence this side of heaven.

So, we too must face death in our daily lives. Death of loved ones, dreams, hopes, ideas, jobs, homes—death permeates our world. We can mourn those things. Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted (Matthew 5:4). Good Friday is a day to mourn but mourn expectantly. Our mourning does have an end, a glorious, victorious, radiant, triumphant, resurrected end!

We serve a Living Victor! A Resurrected Savior! A Glorified King! A Triumphant Comforter who is able, willing, and more than qualified to wrap you in His arms and breath new life into whatever needs resurrection. So, if you still live inside a tomb, look to the Light of your Savior’s triumph, heed His voice, and walk out.

Yes, we all have the Good Fridays in our lives and in our circumstances. They are necessary. Because we cannot know the freedom of the resurrected life without them. Jesus suffered and died to give us a choice. Don’t choose to stay in your tomb. Mourn for a season. Traverse, grapple, wrestle the weird mystery of the middle between death and life. But in the end, choose Christ and live. Live abundantly and victoriously!

Today I’ll shed tears for my Jesus, His Good Friday. I’ll shed tears for my Good Fridays and those of others, but I will smile as I cry because Sunday is coming, and I’m living life on the winning team. Are you?