Why Is The Murder Of Jesus Called Good Friday?Sample

Why should we celebrate Good Friday rather than mourn? 

In a  fourth-century church manual, the Apostolic Constitutions, Good Friday is called a "day of mourning, not a day of festive Joy." Ambrose, the fourth-century archbishop who befriended the notorious sinner Augustine of Hippo before his conversion, called it the "day of bitterness on which we fast."

Good Friday is not a sad day. Even today many Good Friday services are clothed in darkness and draped in black vestments. People wear white and sing mournful songs. It is sort of like a funeral. 

But Good Friday is not a sad day. The remarkable truth of Good Friday is that Jesus died, so we don’t have to. It is really the most amazing thing to behold one’s King, one’s Creator, dying on a tree in a most glorious sacrifice: “Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends” (John 15:13). Your eyes may fill with tears, but it’s not sad tears. It is tears of joy.

Many seem to stay in remorseful tears over Jesus' death as if he was a great hero who simply "died too young," but for those of us in Christ, the tears should quickly fade. The sadness should end.

 

What Jesus accomplished on the cross should lead us to celebrate not mourn! The death we saw Jesus endure has been defeated, not just for Him but for all of us! Our sin that led to his death has been conquered and atoned once for all!

 

We must remember that Jesus is not a sad victim of a fallen world, a victim of a gruesome plot. He is the joyful redeemer of that fallen world!

You can’t rise from the dead if you don’t die. But Resurrection Sunday and Good Friday represent two polar opposites in the saving work of Jesus, the two biblical poles of “suffering and glory.” Since it’s really, really hard to focus on two polar opposite realities at the same time, or in the same act of worship, the cross tends to get forgotten on Resurrection Sunday and the resurrection is forgotten on Good Friday. 

The cross alone is incomplete. It’s not the full Christian story. So, ordinarily Christian worship can’t and shouldn’t dwell fully and uniquely on the cross. It is good to end the Good Friday service reminding ourselves that death is not the end. He arose. It should be a celebration of life and not death.

So, instead of being weighed down with the thought of heaviness, of mourning, of fasting, of penitence, let your soul be lifted up by the remembrance of the assurances of Jesus (John 14:28)

and by the knowledge that the Father's love is infinite and unfailing (John 3:16)

Because Jesus died, we will not see spiritual death. Because He rose again, we will live forever.

Hallelujah! What a Savior.

Quote: 

“The cross is the victory, the resurrection is the triumph…The resurrection is the public display of the victory, the triumph of the crucified one.” ― Leon Morris

Prayer: 

Lord, help me to have tears of sorrow for my sin that put You on the cross, tears of joy that You paid for my sins and to celebrate the fact that I will not see death, because You died and rose again for me. Amen