"Good" Friday???

So its Easter week this week.  Yay!  I love the part where Jesus comes out of the tomb and...wait!  What is today?  Good Friday.  What happened on this day that we celebrate so much?  Christ's death.  How is the trial, humiliation, torture, and crucifixion of an innocent man to be considered, "good?"  How can we look at the great sacrifice of God in His son, Jesus Christ, and call that horrible day good?

When I think about acts like that, thoughts about the terrorism and the degradation of humankind involved in this act, I feel empty and lost.  Then, when I think that Christ willingly chose to do that for me I shudder and weep because of that cost.  When in the garden of Gethsemane he asked God to choose something else for him. Yet at the end of his prayer, he affirms that God's way is the best way.  Knowingly choosing an extremely painful death. Yet we call this act "good" on the Friday before Easter.

He endured an extremely painful torture session where they robed him as a "king" in jest and then beat him and whipped him.  He was forced to carry his (extremely heavy) cross from that place up to the top of Golgatha, being mocked and whipped along the way.  And he did this willingly!  He could have stopped it at any time and choose instead to be rescued by angels, but instead, he sacrificed himself to this awful scenario and kept enduring it for a reason greater than himself.  And yet we still call this act "good" on the Friday before Easter.

On the top of Golgotha (a name which means the place of the skulls), they nailed Jesus to the cross and lifted him up to hang there.  The weight of his body would be pulling down on the nails in his hands and feet, suffocating him as time wore on.  Yet he stayed there.  Suffering.  In tremendous pain.  Dying.  He was a man who had done no wrong in his entire life. He had lived a perfect life.  He should have been honored, not crucified.  Yet here he was, dying with guilty men.  The real good man being punished with sinners.  And we still call this day good.

It was on the cross that Jesus was finally able to cry out at the end of his life the words, "It is finished!"  His life was at its end.  His suffering on the Earth was finished.  His work to pay the price for all the sins that everyone else committed was finished.  He died shortly after saying those words.  They took him down from the cross and laid him in a tomb.  It was finished indeed.  And yet today, Christians all over the world celebrate the work that Jesus had done and call today, "Good Friday."  Why?

With Jesus's body lying in a tomb after having been tortured wrongly, he had paid the price for our sins.  For our mistakes.  I can hold on to freedom from all my sin because of his payment for me.  I am free because Jesus died for me!  You are free because Jesus died for you!  We can live lives free from shame because Jesus had paid the ultimate price for us.  And we did nothing to deserve it.  The acts themselves were terrible, but we are free because of them.  It is a very dark day, but for us, it is a good one.  That is why today is Good Friday.  Amen!

³ He was hated and rejected by people.
    He had much pain and suffering.
People would not even look at him.
    He was hated, and we didn’t even notice him.

⁴ But he took our suffering on him
    and felt our pain for us.
We saw his suffering
    and thought God was punishing him.
⁵ But he was wounded for the wrong we did;
    he was crushed for the evil we did.
The punishment, which made us well, was given to him,
    and we are healed because of his wounds.
⁶ We all have wandered away like sheep;
    each of us has gone his own way.
But the Lord has put on him the punishment
    for all the evil we have done.

⁷ He was beaten down and punished,
    but he didn’t say a word.
He was like a lamb being led to be killed.
    He was quiet, as a sheep is quiet while its wool is being cut;
    he never opened his mouth.
⁸ Men took him away roughly and unfairly.
    He died without children to continue his family.
He was put to death;
    he was punished for the sins of my people.
⁹ He was buried with wicked men,
    and he died with the rich.
He had done nothing wrong,
    and he had never lied.

¹⁰ But it was the Lord who decided
    to crush him and make him suffer.
    The Lord made his life a penalty offering,
but he will still see his descendants and live a long life.
    He will complete the things the Lord wants him to do.
¹¹ “After his soul suffers many things,
    he will see life and be satisfied.
My good servant will make many people right with God;
    he will carry away their sins.  (Isaiah 53:3-11 NCV)