Good Friday

I love a good party. Maybe it’s because I’m the youngest child — and an extreme extrovert. Or it’s just how God knit me together in my mother’s womb, as it says in Psalm 139:13-16.

Whatever the reason, I love a good party. I love to get a date on the calendar. I love inviting people to party with me. I even love planning the party. And the party itself? I am in my wheelhouse!

So, naturally, I love Easter—the ultimate party! Easter is the Sunday Christ-followers around the globe celebrate when God conquered Satan and gave us a way back to a right relationship with Him.

I love seeing little girls in frilly dresses and boys in bow ties. I love the choir singing “Because He Lives” and the congregation joining voices with “Crown Him with Many Crowns.” I even love Peeps, which I understand can be controversial. But that’s how much I love Easter.

What we must understand about Good Friday

The Christian tradition I grew up in was to make a big deal of Easter. But I only have vague memories of Good Friday. Our church and my family did many things really well, but knowing what I know now, they missed the intense importance of Good Friday.

Without Good Friday, we don’t get to celebrate Easter Sunday. The devastating events of Good Friday are the catalyst of our joy-filled Resurrection Sunday.

We look to the wooden cross to reveal the torture, tears and tenacity of our Savior, Jesus. We must hear about and understand His painful struggle (no matter how difficult it is) to experience the fullness of his love, the fullness of his sacrifice and the fullness of Easter.

Historians explain the cruel nature of crucifixion, and the Gospels (the New Testament books Matthew, Mark, Luke and John) tell of the personal history of Jesus’ crucifixion. The Roman government used death by crucifixion to send a message to all in the Roman world that this is what happens when you cross Rome. The beatings and crucifixions happened in public places—imagine a town square and the busiest road—so the message would be loud and clear to as many people as possible.

The Roman guards who administered the beatings and oversaw the crucifixions were known to be ruthless, over-the-top and angry. With whips and clubs in their hands, they would beat individuals near the point of death, having a grand time while doing it.

In Matthew’s Gospel, he wrote, “Then the governor’s soldiers took Jesus into the Praetorium and gathered the whole company of soldiers around him. They stripped him and put a scarlet robe on him, and then twisted together a crown of thorns and set it on his head. They put a staff in his right hand. Then they knelt in front of him and mocked him. “Hail, king of the Jews!” they said. They spit on him, and took the staff and struck him on the head again and again. After they had mocked him, they took off the robe and put his own clothes on him.” (Matthew 27:27-31)

With splinters from the cross digging into his open flesh, Jesus then carried the cross to the place called Golgotha. As his arms stretched out wide, thick nails were driven into his hands and feet.

His body was lifted up on the cross at 9 a.m. As he fought to take each breath, soldiers, religious leaders, and even the criminals being crucified on either side of Him cast insults like “He saved others, but he can’t save himself.” (Mark 15:25-31)

Why would anyone call this “Good”?

We can’t begin to imagine the loneliness, sadness and rejection Jesus experienced on that Friday. For you. For me.

He endured six excruciating hours on the cross before taking his last breath at 3 p.m. The Bible tells us darkness came over the whole land. Oh, how heavy that darkness must have felt to those who had committed their lives to the man on that cross.

This is the reality of the Friday that we call Good. We can call it Good because we are on the other side. We know the ending.

But on this Good Friday, let’s discipline ourselves to sit in the sadness. To bear the weight of the beatings. To feel the darkness.

It’s in those moments we can truly understand the joy of Easter morning.

And what a party that will be!