Good Friday

This week is what we know as Holy Week where we especially focus on the history of the death of Jesus Christ, His burial, and His resurrection from the dead.

Not only does the crucifixion and resurrection of Christ stand at the very center of Christianity, but it stands at the center of world history, as well.

Every time you write the date you are writing about Jesus Christ. History is divided into B.C. Before Christ and AD which stands for Anno Domini, which is Latin for, “in the year of the Lord”.

If Jesus Christ is co-equally God with the Father and with the Holy Spirit, what in the world was He doing on the Cross?

That is the last place you would expect to see Him.

If you have a Bible, please open to 1 Corinthians 1.

Again, the crucifixion and resurrection are at the very center of the Christian Faith.

Without the history of Good Friday and Easter, as Paul says in 1 Corinthians 15:19, If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men the most pitiable. NKJV

Imagine for a moment that you just landed on planet Earth from some other place, and you have never heard the Gospel before.

You are told the Creator God of the entire Universe loved His creation so much that He sent His Son to reveal to us who God is and He allowed His creation to brutalize and kill His Son.

You are told, Jesus took the beating and the cross so that sinful, rebellious men, might be saved from the penalty of their sin.

This sounds way out there…doesn’t it?

And before that happened, as we read in John 13:3 Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into His hands and that He had come from God and was going to God,

John 13:4 rose from supper and laid aside His garments, took a towel, and girded Himself.

John 13:5 After that, He poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples' feet and to wipe them with the towel with which He was girded. NKJV

Max Lucado said, “Jesus touched the stinky, ugly parts of His disciples. Knowing He came from God and He was going to God.

Knowing He could arch an eyebrow or clear His throat and every angel in the universe would snap to attention.

Knowing that all authority was His, He exchanged his robe for the servant’s wrap, lowered Himself to knee level, and began to rub away the grime, and the grunge from their feet.” (Lucado)

? How can some archaic story, of a Jewish carpenter getting killed on a Roman cross, save my soul from eternal damnation?

? Why do we call this Good Friday when our Savior was killed?

Read 1 Corinthians 1:18-25

Man’s wisdom says that there is no way the blood of Jesus Christ can remove another person’s sins.

Those who reject Jesus Christ think the idea of being saved through the work of a crucified man, is pure foolishness.

The Bible is full of accounts, where the Lord uses foolish things to confound people who are wise in their own eyes.

It may seem foolish that the Lord used the Apostle Paul to write 1 Corinthians and preach the Gospel since he was a former persecutor of Christians before he came to Christ.

As Christ followers, the Lord tells us to surrender to win, die to live, be born again to inherit eternal life, suffer for Christ’s sake, and give it all away to keep it.

Isaiah 55:8 "For My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways My ways," says the LORD.

Isaiah 55:9 "For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways, and My thoughts than your thoughts. NKJV

Paul says in 1 Corinthians 1:18, “To us who are being saved the Cross is the power of God.”

Even though the Cross may seem foolish to nonbelievers, to those who trust what Jesus did on Calvary, the Cross actually demonstrates, and becomes the power of God for salvation.

1 Corinthians 15:54 "Death is swallowed up in victory."

1 Corinthians 15:55 "O Death, where is your sting? O Hades, where is your victory?" NKJV

Jesus defeated death by dying on the Cross!

And when Jesus rose from the dead it not only proved all of Jesus' claims that He was who He said He was, but it also proved the Father accepted Jesus' payment for our sins.

1 John 4:10 In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins.

When a person by faith, believes the Gospel, it has the power to raise a dead man to life, make them born again, and save them from the penalty of their sin, which seems foolish to people.