Good Friday?

Mary wasn’t the one who called it ‘good’. She saw the injustice through the eyes of a mother. They stripped Him and beat Him. They laughed at Him. They mocked Him and spit upon Him. He didn’t retaliate and that probably only angered those mocking Him all the more. Mary certainly didn’t call it ‘good’.

Peter didn’t call it ‘good’. Jesus was right – Peter had denied his Lord three times. Jesus was betrayed and carried away to be crucified. What now? Peter certainly isn’t the one who called it ‘good’.

Judas didn’t call it good. He had everything he bargained for yet he found it to be worthless once he beheld it. He held ‘blood money’ – money that would have Christ’s blood spilled on the cross, and that would result in Judas’ blood being spilled. For Judas this Friday was anything but ‘good’.

It was not even the Pharisees or religious leaders who called it good. Sure their plot to see Jesus crucified had succeeded, but now they worried about the statements Jesus made about coming back from the grave. They were on full alert, lest this Jesus be rumored to be alive again and really gain popularity. They didn’t call this day ‘good’.

Jesus didn’t call the day ‘good’ either. The black and white pages of our Bibles cannot begin to communicate the pain and suffering He endured this day. It wasn’t so much the physical suffering as the moment He cried “My God, My God, Why have You forsaken Me?” Jesus didn’t declare this day ‘good’.

Had those been the last words of Christ, the day never could have been called ‘good’. But each of the gospels records a final cry of Jesus as He breathed His last. John’s gospel (written that ‘we might believe’) records the words: “It is finished!” Because He finished the work of redemption, you and I by faith can call this day ‘good’.