Good Good Friday

On Good Friday some people in Monrovia celebrated by making effigies of Judas and then beat it to shreds with sticks. Only in Liberia.

I was in a foul mood on Friday. For some reason everything irked and irritated me. It was unusually hot so I was unusually sweaty which also means I was unusually uncomfortable. I felt annoyed by people's mannerisms or a side remark or any other trivial thing. I was letting all these little things percolate inside of me when God hit me over the head with this:

"But Jesus made no reply, not even to a single charge."

The one man who had most reason to cry out accusingly at the very people he had come to save, did not say a single word.

I think sometimes we often are so focused on the physical brutality of the cross, that we miss just how dark this day really was. Human history has lots of examples of humans who have suffered greater physical pain then the cross. The real suffering was in carrying all of humanity's sin. The weight of that is so great that we can't really comprehend it. It was a weight so heavy that it caused Jesus, God made flesh, to cry out "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"I think back on my moments of greatest guilt and shame and remember how burdened I felt. When I realize that that is only a drop in the ocean of human transgression, I start to get a glimpse of what really happened at Golgotha.

What follows next is, in my opinion, the most beautiful and understated passage in the Bible.

"At that moment the curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom."

Because of the cross we have the privilege of walking right into the Holy of Holies and start a beautiful relationship with God, creator of the universe.

Awesome.