Today is Good Friday. It’s the day Jesus died for you and me so we could be redeemed back to God. That’s what’s so good about Good Friday!
The fickle crowd who praised Him to high Heaven last Sunday now called for his death. “Crucify Him!” And so they did. Jesus could have fought. He could have refused. But He didn’t. He willingly laid down His life for us. For you and me!
John 3:16
For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten son that whosoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.
That’s what’s so good about Good Friday!
And do you know what else is so good about today?
It’s a Good Friday because we live on this side of the Passover Lamb laying down His life for us. We can look back at scriptures and see the hand of God at work in the history of the world. Most people never had that opportunity.
The most significant prophecies are found in the book of Isaiah and penned 700 years before Christ.
Isaiah 53
1Who has believed our message
and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?
2 He grew up before him like a tender shoot,
and like a root out of dry ground.
He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him,
nothing in his appearance that we should desire him.
3 He was despised and rejected by mankind,
a man of suffering, and familiar with pain.
Like one from whom people hide their faces
he was despised, and we held him in low esteem.
4 Surely he took up our pain
and bore our suffering,
yet we considered him punished by God,
stricken by him, and afflicted.
5 But he was pierced for our transgressions,
he was crushed for our iniquities;
the punishment that brought us peace was on him,
and by his wounds we are healed.
6 We all, like sheep, have gone astray,
each of us has turned to our own way;
and the Lord has laid on him
the iniquity of us all.
7 He was oppressed and afflicted,
yet he did not open his mouth;
he was led like a lamb to the slaughter,
and as a sheep before its shearers is silent,
so he did not open his mouth.
8 By oppression and judgment he was taken away.
Yet who of his generation protested?
For he was cut off from the land of the living;
for the transgression of my people he was punished.
9 He was assigned a grave with the wicked,
and with the rich in his death,
though he had done no violence,
nor was any deceit in his mouth.
10 Yet it was the Lord’s will to crush him and cause him to suffer,
and though the Lord makes his life an offering for sin,
he will see his offspring and prolong his days,
and the will of the Lord will prosper in his hand.
11 After he has suffered,
he will see the light of life and be satisfied;
by his knowledge my righteous servant will justify many,
and he will bear their iniquities.
12 Therefore I will give him a portion among the great,
and he will divide the spoils with the strong,
because he poured out his life unto death,
and was numbered with the transgressors.
For he bore the sin of many,
and made intercession for the transgressors.
And this is the day we remember how very much God LOVES us. He gave His son to die in place of us, for our sin. It’s even better because we know God did not leave Him there…..…See you Sunday!
Yes, it is a Good Friday….
Do you still have a problem believing this message? It was all in God’s plan from the beginning. It was promised thousands of years before Jesus was born. God would send his son to redeem us. I hope you’ll take time to trace these promises in more detail here.