Monday 28 April 2014

The Black Friday that is Good

Some thoughts on Easter.
A black Friday that’s good?
Strange to our ears isn’t it, calling it Good Friday, after all what is good about it, it’s about someone’s death, and more particularly the death of Jesus Christ, the co-equal Son of God the Father, and co-creator with the Father and the Spirit of the universe and the giver of life.
On Good Friday, God died! That sounds like the end of the world!
Yes, that’s right. Jesus was the Word incarnate. That’s what we celebrate at Christmas, God made flesh with man residing. As it says in the words of the carol and of the great confessions, ‘Very God, begottten not created.’ We must not reduce our thinking when it comes to the cross and think only of His humanity. Yes, this was truly none other than God. And on Good Friday, the Creator dies…… shocking thought isn’t it?
At that point in time it was the most cataclysmic day in history, no day before it was like it – and there had been some dark ones, but none as dark as this.
Satan no doubt rejoiced, and his minions were delighted. The battle had been tough. Right from the day of his birth they had tried to get Him. Time and again they thought they had Him, only to be beaten back again and again, as Jesus overcame temptation after temptation, remained obedient to His Father, went on mission, forgave sinners, healed the sick, delivered those they held captive… but now, ah now, they thought once again they had him, that this was it, He was dead – DEAD. The last breath had gone, his life had expired.  The lifeless body was sealed in a tomb. Surely, there was no way out of this.
But no, they hadn’t realised and reckoned on the fact that this was part of the great plan, the great strategy of the Divine counsels of eternity. He must die. He must go and face the very thing death itself – the result of the curse – and enter it completely for the price to be fully paid and the curse to be undone.
So what was black Friday turns out to be Good Friday as God in Christ defeats Satan, sin, death, and yes Hell itself, the ultimate end of the wicked, and in doing so He pays the price for all our sin, satisfying his own justice as a holy and righteous and God – but it wont be Good Friday unless Easter Sunday comes.
In the words of Charles Wesley:
O love divine, what have You done!
The immortal God has died for me!
The Father’s co-eternal Son
Bore all my sins upon the tree:
The immortal God for me has died;
My Lord, my love, is crucified.
Charles Wesley

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