I am walking outside early in the morning, the sun has come up only a short while ago. I hear birds chirping. Somewhere in the distance there’s a dog barking. It’s the most beautiful spring morning.
This morning. The morning of Good Friday.
The day where we remember the agony and pain that our Lord Jesus suffered for us. The day we remember the thorns and the spear, the angry crowds shouting, the heat, the long road, the cross.
The. Heavy. Cross.
The death.
The death of Jesus, the perfect Rabbi, the unblemished Lamb, the promise for freedom, the hope for healing.
Dead. Gone.
It’s a dark day for the disciples.
But today’s day of rememberence is not as dark for us, and the scene around me doesn’t seem to fit the story we read.
And that’s okay. Because any of the rememberence days will not ever be as dark a day as that day ever was.
Yes, I need to remember my sins, I remember my shame, and confess and remember those specifically on Good Friday. But at the same time, it is also a joyful day, because I know something the disciples didn’t know then.
I know the story doesn’t end there. I know that death is not the end.
I know death is the beginning.
Death is the beginning of our story, the renewal of me.
His death is the beginning of a new story God is writing.
Death is the beginning of Him defeating death, of Him not staying there.
Death is the beginning of God’s everlasting victory against Satan and his kingdom.
It’s not as dark a day because I know the story doesn’t end there. Because I know the story begins there. That’s the hope in we find in it. That’s the joy in it.
That’s the hope, joy, and peace that I sense on that Good Friday morning, the spring morning matching my heart’s condition.
I’m not one of the disciples that grieve the death of Christ.
I do grieve His death. Grieve that it had to happen that way. Grieve my sins, my shame, my faults, my mistakes, my human stubbornness and rebellion. Grieve that he had to die.
But I never have to stop there. I always just begin there. And then go on praising Him for being alive, for even making my relationship with Him possible, for forgiving me my sins and filling my life with hope and joy.
And I praise Him for forgiving all those people around me. Because you know what? Jesus doesn’t just forgive my sins and love me unconditionally, overwhelmingly. He also loves the person next to me and forgives them. Everything. Always. Forever. If they repent.
And He does so for every person around us.
Isn’t that fascinating? Even that person over there on the other side of the room that we don’t particularly like, that we don’t ever really want to talk to or work with.
Even that person is forgiven and restored and endlessly loved.
That person, too, is created in the image of God.
This challenges me to love. Challenges me to love them like He does. Because He loves me and is gracious and merciful towards me. And He loves them and is gracious and merciful towards them. What then gives me the right to not be that?
Oh, joy! That glorious Friday morning. The time in history where death wasn’t the end of anything, but really the beginning of something, the thing, the only thing that truly really matters in this life.
And so that morning somehow fits, even though I will take time to think about the dark and heavy, I always have the hope that the birds seem to sing about that morning (because what else would they talk about anyway, right?).
The hope that fills my life. The joy that fills my heart.
And I start joining the birds in their song.
Listen here to the song with which we join the birds.
