My dad was a rather quiet, laid-back kind of guy. He generally didn’t get overly worked up about anything. Yet, every now and then you’d see the rebel, or a different side of the man peek through in his personality. Such as, one day I noticed dad wearing a T-shirt with a message on it that really rather surprised me. Oh, it was nothing vulgar or anything like that, but the message was just…surprising. What the T-shirt said was, “Don’t tell me what kind of a day to have!” This message was commentary on people constantly saying, “Have a good day!!”
Now, I never was able to have a serious conversation with dad about the T-shirt and its message, and ask if he was just making a joke, or thought the message was funny, or if he was serious and just plain tired of people constantly saying, “Have a good day!” So, I’m thinking of dad as I write this article, because I want to tell you, and the world, the kind of day to have. I want you to have a “Good Friday!” I don’t mean this as a platitude, as in the cheery voice saying, “Have a good day.” But since today, as I write this, is Good Friday, I truly want each of you and myself to have a Good Friday.
What I mean by this is that I hope each of us will absorb or think about the meaning of this day for us as followers of Jesus. This is the day that we remember Jesus died on the cross. He died as the perfect sacrifice, once and for all.
You see, you have to understand the sacrificial system that was in place in Jesus’ day. Sin is real and has to be dealt with in a certain way. Sin, or missing the mark of God’s desire for us, causes a break in our relationships with God. It’s saying that I know better than God, so I’m going to do things my way rather than God’s way. Taking that action, or sinning, costs us something. The cost is damage to our connection or relationship with God. It says something about how we view God and God’s desires for our lives and the world. So, to “fix” or to take care of the damage that sin has caused in our lives, that too, has to cost us something. It requires something of value from us to show we understand and recognize the damage done through our disobeying and disregarding God’s ways. Since it was such an agrarian culture in Jesus’s day, it made sense that the “sacrifice” was generally something agrarian in nature, an animal, some grain, bread, wine, etc.
However, there came a point when God realized that the sacrificial system had lost its meaning and effectiveness within the hearts and minds of the people. The cost of erasing the effects of sin or repairing the damaged relationship had generally become insignificant or of little consequence to the people. So, people just kept on sinning without giving it a second thought and without changing their lives.
So, a new plan, a new covenant was needed. Rather than humanity providing the sacrifice for their sins…what if God provided the sacrifice? That sacrifice would be something so significant, so great, from God’s perspective, that it would cause humanity to take notice. So, God sent his son into the world. God sent his son to the cross not out of anger and wrath, though God is angry about sin. God sent his son to the cross out of a loving desire to clear the way for humanity to reconnect with God, to cover the cost of sin, and to show this is a relationship based on love not anger. As Romans 5:6-8 tells us, “For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. Indeed, rarely will anyone die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person someone might actually dare to die. But God proves his love for us in that while we still were sinners Christ died for us.”
This is a Good Friday. The debt has been paid. God’s love for you and me has been displayed for all to see. I don’t want to tell you what kind of a day to have…but I do want you to have a Good Friday, experiencing the genuine cost and love that the cross reveals for all humanity and all creation!!
Pastor Keith