What’s the “Good” in Good Friday?

April 3, 2015

“All we like sheep have gone astray; We have turned, every one, to his own way; And the LORD has laid on Him the iniquity of us all.” (Isaiah 53:6)

If you want to know what is good about Good Friday this verse in Isaiah 53 will tell you.  This verse describes with great clarity the meaning of the death of Jesus Christ on the cross when it begins and ends with the same word: “all.”  The verse begins with what we might call “the bad news.”  Isaiah tells us that all of us are like little sheep and have gone astray.  We have turned, every single one of us, to our own way.  If you want to know the meaning of the death of Jesus Christ on the cross, agree that you yourself are included in that first all.

The all with which this verse concludes is what we might call “the good news.” Isaiah ends this verse by telling us that the penalty for all the things we have done after turning to our own way has been laid on Him (meaning Jesus).  I don’t know about you, but for me that is very, very good news!  If you and I will confess that we are included in the first and the last all in this great Gospel verse then we know what we need to know and we have done all we need to do to turn our bad news into good news.  And we know what is good about Good Friday.

If you want to make this Friday of Holy Week a Good Friday, believe what Isaiah has written.

Dick Woodward, 02 April 2010

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The Best Deal Ever Offered

March 26, 2013

“God put the wrong on him who never did anything wrong, so we could be put right with God.”   (2 Corinthians 5:21, the Message)

So what is the biggest weekend in the Church year all about?  What does it mean to you and me personally?  The Apostle Paul put it in a nutshell. What it amounts to is the best deal ever offered.

Because of what happened on Good Friday God has offered to put all of our wrong on Jesus and in exchange put all that is right with Jesus on you and me.  That’s the best offer we ever had.  All we have to do to close on the offer is believe it!

In 1949 while I was doing social work in Pittsburgh, late one night a man asked if he could speak with me.  As we talked in the darkness outside a closed recreation center he told me he was wounded in the great Battle of the Bulge toward the end of World War II.  While still under fire he saw a chaplain crawling from one wounded man to another.  This chaplain apparently had something very important he said to those men.  He hoped the chaplain would make it to him but after taking several hits the chaplain didn’t move anymore.

He said he had been wondering for several years what it was the chaplain had to say to those men.  He said after watching me for a couple of month he told his wife he believed I could tell him what that chaplain was telling those wounded men.  I told him about the greatest deal ever offered.

This Easter do you have a message for dying people?  Do you have a message for people who are going to live?

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