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What's good about Good Friday..!

By Robert Clements. Dated: 4/14/2017 10:59:36 PM

Many a time, I'm asked by friends as I walk with them or talk to them, "Bob, what's so good about Good Friday?" And they continue, "Sure it's good those years in school having a holiday, but wasn't it the day Jesus died on the cross? And you Christians call that good?"
What's so good about Good Friday?
If you look at what happened, it was one of the most horrible days in the Christian calendar, as an innocent man, who claimed to be the Messiah, was not just hung on the cross, but nailed on to it. Huge, big nails were hammered through his hands and feet, and a Roman soldier even drove a spear through his side. Just before the ordeal on the cross, Christ had been made to walk through the streets of Jerusalem, beaten, bruised and battered, but carrying the heavy wooden cross, on which he would finally be nailed!
Just before that, he had been whipped and flogged. He had been mocked by the Romans, the Jewish priests and even the crowds, many of whom he had healed, and by many who'd seen his miracles and had heard him preach.
They all knew he was innocent.
Yet they watched him die.
And we call the day, "Good'?
I can understand the confusion in the minds of my friends. What's wrong with you guys, calling such a terrible day good? Are you sadists?
No, we aren't, I reply. Jesus died as part of God's plan. Throughout the holy scriptures we hear about God wanting to walk with man, talk with man, but separated from men and women because both were wicked.
How then could God the creator of man, walk and talk with his creation?
Only by someone taking the punishment for us being wicked.
And on that Good Friday, two thousand years ago, on a rough wooden cross, Jesus died for the sins of the world, and with His death, everybody, not just Christians, but everybody had access to God walking, talking and being their Father and friend.
I hear noises. I feel transported to that gory, horrible scene on a hill in Jerusalem. I see His severely wounded body, his bloodied face, and his head rammed tight with a crown of thorns. I hear the mocking soldiers, and see the jeering crowd, and then I see his eyes searching, through that crowd, till they rest on me, "Bob," he says in a whisper, only I can hear, "I die for you, so that you can walk with God!"
And suddenly I feel a sense of freedom, for indeed, now with God beside me, alongside me, inside me, it is a Good Friday..!
bobsbanter@gmail.com