Good Friday

Isaiah 53:4-6 Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned—every one—to his own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.

This is the irony of the cross- it was because of us, and yet it was for us. Jesus became man and lived a life of perfect union with and obedience to God the Father. We, every single one of us, have lived otherwise. Though God offers us perfect love, we settle for lesser things and give Him broken, often half-hearted, love in return. Like Israel, our obedience is spotty. We have seasons of all out devotion to the Lord, trusting His goodness and faithfulness in each step He calls us to. Yet before long, we forget how amazing He and His ways are... we choose our own way. Again, we settle for something less. And, to put it bluntly, we sin. So Jesus came, gave us this perfect model of how to live a life dependent on and motivated by the good love and faithfulness of God. But Jesus came for so much more- to take on the filth of our sins; to take on the bruises and cuts we deserve; to die our rightful death. And through this act on the wretched cross, He offers us victory. Peace and healing are ours, both now and forever. You and I can have something so much bigger than any struggle of this world. Through His power we can find healing from the wounds acquired from the journey of life, both physically and emotionally. But even bigger than that, we can be healed spiritually. Through faith in what was accomplished on the cross, we can receive new life spiritually- life that starts now and never ends. Unfortunately, though we are promised and guaranteed this spiritual re-birth, the physical and emotional healing we so deeply long for doesn't always happen in this life. This is where the peace deal comes in. In John, Jesus tells us that the very peace that He had during His earthly life is the peace that He left us with- peace that goes beyond all understanding. This peace is grounded in the faith that God is a lovingly good and faithful God. His ways are perfect, even when they don't seem to align with our desires. And beyond His faithfulness to us in this life, our deepest peace comes from the fact that, because of what Jesus did on the cross, He will faithfully bring us into His presence for all eternity. It takes the deep, often painful, understanding of our own sin that caused Jesus to die such a horrendous death to enable us to catch a glimpse of the deep, passionate love of God. A God who wrote the cross into the history of the world that He might spend eternity with us.