Welcome to Good Friday. That title has always been a little confusing to me. Growing up there was the joke that went around saying it was good because we got out of school and it was typically good weather so we could enjoy the day off.

I would find out later that it was called Good Friday because on this day around 33AD, Jesus Christ was crucified for the sins of the world (Matthew 27; Mark 15; Luke 23; John 19).

How could something that was so brutal, so shameful, so wrong be considered good in any sense? What sadistic person said, “Let’s remember this day as something good and put it on the calendar to remind us!”?

I’m not sure who that person was, but I am so grateful that they did.  It is days like this that I am reminded of just how often that God wants us to see that there is so much more than what appears on the surface.

The saddest day in history is also one of the greatest.  On this day… on that hill called Golgotha/Calvary… the Son of God took the sins of the world and dealt with them!  It turns my stomach to think about all that Jesus went through – the mockery, the shame, the beatings, the torture – it was all because of my sin.  All that junk that Jesus went through was meant for me.  But because of the love that God has for us, He took it so I didn’t have to.

May this day be so much more than another “day off” for us.  My prayer is that it would be a day of reflection… a day that we remember the high price that Jesus was willing to pay just to redeem us.  If anyone needs any proof that they are cared about, they need only to turn their eyes to that hill called Calvary and see God hanging there with arms wide open saying, “I love you this much!”