Good Friday

My favorite Christian day is Good Friday. I remember as a girl, naïve, hearing words applied to Jesus’ crucifixion I didn’t understand, but I knew they were horrible, and from the look on Mom’s face when I used them, they were shameful. In Ephesians 5:3, and 12, Paul takes sin very seriously. He doesn’t focus on the cross, but it’s there. The cross represents the wrath Paul talks about, poured out on God’s Son so we don’t have to endure it. He already suffered the shame of all those things. At the crucifixion we have this insufferable contrast. On my photo editor of my computer, I can adjust contrast. Too far one way, and all I see is black. Too far the other, and all is white. In Jesus’ death there is all the light that makes shameful works manifest, and also all the darkness and death of sin. How unbearable!

So Paul’s focus is instead like compassion on us: why would we want to remind ourselves of all that? Why partake of the shame, and incur the wrath? Once we were in darkness, and we couldn’t see the horrible shame of our sin, but Jesus came. He lived light, and then He died, manifesting just what the wrath looked like. Then He rose, to offer us light. Why would we, knowing, walk in unfruitful, shameful, reprovable darkness?

To God be all glory.