It's Good Friday.
I love Easter and all that it represents.
Christ rose from the dead and allowed us access to Him forever! That's the very best part of the whole story of the bible.
But Good Friday is the very worst.
This year I had the privilege of teaching the K-2nd grade kids about Jesus time in the garden before he died.
It was an intense lesson and it really helped me reflect on all that Jesus went through those few days before He gave us the best gift we could ever get.
I think it's easy for us to focus on the fact that Jesus was God. He was perfect. He never sinned. He knew the plan all along.
It's harder for us to focus on his humanity.
One of the biggest paradoxes of the bible is that Jesus was both fully God and fully man. It wasn't a 50/50 situation.
We think that because Jesus was perfect, going to the cross was easy for Him. I mean, He knew His whole life that that day would come. Those moments would come where He waited in the garden after Passover for the soldiers to come take Him away. Knowing it was coming made it easier right? Wrong.
Jesus left the sleepy disciples at the foot of the mountain and went to be alone with His Father.
In Matthew 26 He says, "My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death."
He prayed and asked God, "My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will."
He wanted a way out if it was possible. He knew what was coming and He didn't want to go through with it.
In Luke 22 it says "And being in anguish, he prayed more earnestly, and his sweat was like drops of blood falling to the ground."
This was a man who knew hurt and sorrow and anguish and fear.
Don't for one second believe that because Jesus knew what He was facing, His task was easy.
My heart was so heavy today thinking about what must have been going through Jesus's mind on that night long ago.
One of His closest friends had betrayed Him. His other friends were obliviously sleeping. He was about to take on punishment that was not His. He did not deserve it. He knew He was about to face the hardest thing in His life...and he cried.
He prayed and He cried and His soul was in anguish. Yes, He was God. Yes, He knew the ending. But He still hurt.
I can't possibly ever understand what Jesus went through that night long ago, but I can relate to his hurt. I don't know what it's like to be perfect and face punshment, but I do know what it feels like to feel injustice. I know what it means for your soul to be in anguish and to stare death in the face. I know what it means to cry heavy tears.
The weight of His tears that night is not lost on me. My suffering is nothing compared to His.
And the craziest part about the whole thing is, He willingly faced all of this suffering....for me.
That night was the saddest in history, but it was because of that night, that the best day in history could happen.
I can't wait for Sunday!
