It's been a minute. Somehow we're 25% through 2018. Somehow I've been at the paint studio I manage for 5 years. Somehow time marches more swiftly by the minute. I've heard that has something to do with getting older. If so by the time I'm 50 a year will feel like 5 seconds. Apparently time travel is a real thing.
Good Friday is the unofficial anniversary of when I started at the paint studio. Unofficial only because I started on Good Friday, but Good Friday does not fall on the same day every year. :)
I love Good Friday. It's the day that we all need. Obviously in the very real sense of we all need Jesus and Good Friday marks when he died for our sins. But also in the sense of how crucial perspective is.
If we look at Good Friday on Friday, we see defeat. We see that moment where you just stop breathing because this can't possibly be happening. This can't be real. If Jesus is the Messiah how did he let this happen? What? Why? This is impossible. This is torment. This is the moment you give up. Everything is not okay and it probably never will be again. Ever been there?
Imagine Saturday morning as a disciple, replaying all the events of the past 24-36 hours in your head. Desperately wishing it was all a dream. Grasping, begging for this not to be real.
Friday was awful. Saturday unbearable.
But then Sunday comes. Sunday. And you can breathe again. One of those cleansing, revitalizing, sighing deep breaths. This is impossible in the best way.
Why is Good Friday good? Only because we have the perspective of Sunday. On Sunday, death is defeated. If not even death holds sway anymore, there is nothing to fear. Nothing. Sunday is victory. Eternal victory.
Sunday doesn't always come as quickly in our lives as we'd like. Sometimes the chasm between Friday and Sunday seems absolutely unbelievably impossible to bridge. God is big, but maybe not that big. Maybe not big enough to fix this. Maybe we even believe he will sustain us here, on this side of Sunday, but sometimes we don't have faith that he will be victorious. Sometimes we cling to survival but we fall short of believing we'll ever thrive.
But the beautiful thing about eternal victory is that it isn't a far away time. It's always. It was a Sunday 2000 years ago. It's in heaven a million years in the future, possibly when time has ceased to have any purpose or even ceased to exist. And it's now. It's today. It's this Friday. It's that Friday 2000 years ago.
In a lot of ways Good Friday is a call to live in the eternal, to live timeless, to live in the victory that has already been accomplished. We don't live in defeat no matter how things might look at present. Before the cross Jesus told his disciples, "I have told you all this so that you may have peace in me. Here on earth you will have many trials and sorrows. But take heart, because I have overcome the world." (John 16:33 NLT) No matter what happens, Jesus has already overcome it.*
Tetelestai. It is finished. And it is good.
*Lest there be any confusion, the Bible is very clear about how we are to respond to injustice, to those who are the hurting, to the disenfranchised. In no way am I suggesting that living in the timelessness of Jesus's victory means dismissing present suffering.
Good Friday is the unofficial anniversary of when I started at the paint studio. Unofficial only because I started on Good Friday, but Good Friday does not fall on the same day every year. :)
I love Good Friday. It's the day that we all need. Obviously in the very real sense of we all need Jesus and Good Friday marks when he died for our sins. But also in the sense of how crucial perspective is.
If we look at Good Friday on Friday, we see defeat. We see that moment where you just stop breathing because this can't possibly be happening. This can't be real. If Jesus is the Messiah how did he let this happen? What? Why? This is impossible. This is torment. This is the moment you give up. Everything is not okay and it probably never will be again. Ever been there?
Imagine Saturday morning as a disciple, replaying all the events of the past 24-36 hours in your head. Desperately wishing it was all a dream. Grasping, begging for this not to be real.
Friday was awful. Saturday unbearable.
But then Sunday comes. Sunday. And you can breathe again. One of those cleansing, revitalizing, sighing deep breaths. This is impossible in the best way.
Why is Good Friday good? Only because we have the perspective of Sunday. On Sunday, death is defeated. If not even death holds sway anymore, there is nothing to fear. Nothing. Sunday is victory. Eternal victory.
Sunday doesn't always come as quickly in our lives as we'd like. Sometimes the chasm between Friday and Sunday seems absolutely unbelievably impossible to bridge. God is big, but maybe not that big. Maybe not big enough to fix this. Maybe we even believe he will sustain us here, on this side of Sunday, but sometimes we don't have faith that he will be victorious. Sometimes we cling to survival but we fall short of believing we'll ever thrive.
But the beautiful thing about eternal victory is that it isn't a far away time. It's always. It was a Sunday 2000 years ago. It's in heaven a million years in the future, possibly when time has ceased to have any purpose or even ceased to exist. And it's now. It's today. It's this Friday. It's that Friday 2000 years ago.
In a lot of ways Good Friday is a call to live in the eternal, to live timeless, to live in the victory that has already been accomplished. We don't live in defeat no matter how things might look at present. Before the cross Jesus told his disciples, "I have told you all this so that you may have peace in me. Here on earth you will have many trials and sorrows. But take heart, because I have overcome the world." (John 16:33 NLT) No matter what happens, Jesus has already overcome it.*
Tetelestai. It is finished. And it is good.
*Lest there be any confusion, the Bible is very clear about how we are to respond to injustice, to those who are the hurting, to the disenfranchised. In no way am I suggesting that living in the timelessness of Jesus's victory means dismissing present suffering.
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