Good Friday and Easter greetings!
OUT OF THE PIT
“He was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed.” Isaiah 53:5
Good Friday – the original Good Friday – was a dark and sorrowful day. Jesus was pierced, crushed, chastised, wounded and killed. It was a day that the first followers of Jesus, who loved Him as we love Him today, went away in utter despair, mirroring the despair Jesus Himself expressed upon the cross. “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me!”
Why? Why did the Father leave Jesus feeling forsaken? So that we would never have to be! To fulfill God’s promise to us, “I will never leave nor forsake you.”
But Good Friday ultimately amounts to very little without Easter Sunday; because on Good Friday, Jesus joins us in our suffering, our despair, our darkness, but on Easter He defeats them, even death! This is the weekend, friends, that gives us the courage to live the rest of the year.
A dear friend reminded me this morning of Psalm 40. “I waited patiently for the Lord; he turned to me and heard my cry. He lifted me out of the pit, out of the mud and mire; he set my feet upon a rock and gave me a firm place to stand.”
This Holy Weekend, remember, in Jesus Christ, God has not merely joined us in the mud and mire, but He lifts us out of the pit and gives us a firm place to stand. For, we stand in His overwhelming love!
A joyful and redemptive Easter to all!
In Him,
The POP Staff
