Thursday, April 17, 2014

It'd be easier to skip the death part.

Easter is on Sunday. You probably knew this.
And Good Friday is on Friday. You probably knew this too.

You can't really have Easter without Good Friday. 

I mean, you could. But what's the point?

Because on Easter, we celebrate that Jesus rose from the dead.
[Don't let that just pass by you. Rose from the dead. The turning point in history. The event on which my eternity depends. Oh, that those words we hear so often would not just go in one ear and out the other...]

But He has to die before he can rise.
And He has to bear the weight of all my sin before He can conquer sin once and for all.
Before I can be forgiven.
And He has to be betrayed by Judas, rejected by God, and crucified... before we celebrate Easter.

How easy it would be to just skip Good Friday.
It'd be so much more pleasant, really... straight to the "Alleluias," the "He is risens," the ham and potato casserole and chocolate and egg hunts, right past the day Jesus died.
Isn't this often true in life? It feels easier to skip the hard part.
But we can't be "successful" without the hard work.
We can't have well behaved kids without the discipline.
You can't be a great musician without practicing.
You can't be a great athlete without training.

And you can't have an Easter where Jesus rose from the dead without a Good Friday, where Jesus died. 

In fact, I would go as far as saying, there's really no point in doing anything "Eastery" if we're just going to skip Good Friday.

So, whether you find a service or just take some time in your living room, stop. think. pray. reflect.
The blood, the shame, the torture.
He endured and He finished. for you. and for me.


p.s. This is a website I've been using to help me reflect this week.