Good Friday: A Story of Hope
Good Friday: A Story
of Hope
Dear God,
I sit here on Good
Friday thinking about how your people must have felt watching you get
crucified. Did they care? Did they cry? Were they part of the crowd mocking and
beating you? Throwing slander like their last name and screaming the bloody murder
of yours. Yet, instead of betrayal,
shame or anger, you simply looked down from the cross and said, "Father forgive them, for they know now what
they are doing," and my heart is compelled to thank you for this
gift. That instead of giving us the punishment
we deserved, you gave us the love you so righteously lived, and we so
undeservingly and selfishly took.
Ironically, Father,
I woke up at 3:30 a.m. this morning from a bad dream that my Dad tried to stab
me with a kitchen knife, and now that I think about it, that would’ve been the
time you were praying to your Father, “My God, My God, why have you forsaken
me?” and in a sense, a knife was driven into you as you asked God three times
to take it away, but He didn’t, and you began to sweat tears of blood as you
graciously accepted the Father’s will.
And as morbidly comparable as this seems, I think of my bad dream. Though I know it was just a nightmare, and my
Father would never actually stab me, I reflect how in a sense Jesus, how you
must’ve felt when your own Father chose to sacrifice you. I cannot even fathom.
I then think to the
people of this age and their faith.
After reading James 1-5, I reflect on how people like Mary must’ve felt
seeing Jesus die in agony on the cross.
That though He said He was coming back again and had prophesied that,
just imagine the faith of actually believing and living that out right after
you watched the Savior of the world be crucified.
Then, you get to the
tomb and realize someone has taken that bloody body you saw hanging on the
cross, and you question the only man in sight (whom you assume is the Gardner)
where in the world the body has gone, only to finally realize that He, The Resurrected body, is standing well,
alive, and transfigured in front of you.
Goodness, it just gives me such hope, joy, and comfort of your mystery
to know that you not only keep your promises but are coming soon again. That
because you walked out of the grave, I’m walking too, and as Jesus Christ, you
alone are my living hope.
But I also, you see,
think about the people who didn’t have this faith like Mary. Didn’t live it out, believe in you, betrayed
you, or worse yet, didn’t even know you existed. On the day of your betrayal and murder, they
feared the future as the veil was torn in the temple and the sky went
black. And why? Because they didn’t see the hope coming. They didn’t recognize, know, or believe the
riding on the clouds of sunshine on the other side. And as Christian’s, I think that’s the whole
point of Easter. Not that we may
celebrate a time of eggs, candy, or even services, but that we tell and
evangelize to others this great and glorious news.
Sure, many know and choose not to believe, but it is time
that we take a stand and represent Christ well.
That we as His children, sons, and daughters, heirs of Christ, be living
representations of The Resurrection with the faith that they too will come to see
the completion of His story.
The people thousands
of years ago may not have known that Jesus was coming back, and can you just
imagine the sorrow they felt? But we
know the bigger picture, the full story, the revelation of our future hope and
restoration, and it is our job to share, preach, love, live, and express that
Good-God-filled news. Easter was never
about the Easter Bunny, eggs, or candy, but it was always about an Everlasting Awe-filled Savior that Took Every sin from us and Resurrected
it in the end.
Agape,
Amber
