Years ago, I worked as a paramedic in the inner city of Richmond, VA. It was a rush to zoom down streets and highways in our ambulance with no speed limit, with our lights and sirens parting traffic. We considered what we would need for the specific call the entire time we were en route to a location. The 911 dispatch would give us the emergency’s location and nature. We regularly had house fires, shootings, murders, domestic disputes, suicides, terrible car accidents, stabbings, etc. I will spare you the specifics but suffice it to say that I saw dark and evil things I will never forget.
At age 21, the darkness and brokenness of the world became too much for me. While it is true that the creation is beautiful and screams of a Creator with eternal power and divine nature (Romans 1), the ugliness of human sin and the Fall, including my own sin, brought me to a precipice where I either had to curse God as Job’s wife suggested or to surrender my life to our good and gracious Heavenly Father. To everyone’s surprise, I accepted Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior and experienced His goodness.
Good Friday is GOOD, not because a carpenter from Nazareth suffered and died a horrible death by crucifixion, but because He, the precious Lamb of God, is good and died in our place. He gave His good life to save us from our wicked deeds and thoughts. He forgave us as an act of pure grace.
What’s with all the black robes and altar hangings? Black is a color people have worn for millennia in times of mourning. Black clothes convey that someone we love has died, and we are brokenhearted.
But those of us who celebrate Good Friday always have an eye raised toward EASTER Sunday when Jesus was physically raised from the dead, ALIVE! Conquered sin and death. Brought life and eternal life.
For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance; that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that He was buried, that He was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures.”
1 Corinthians 15:3-4
Almighty God,
We beseech you graciously to behold this your family, for whom our Lord Jesus Christ was willing to be betrayed and given into the hands of sinners, and to suffer death upon the Cross; who now lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.