So What's So Good about "Good Friday?"

Today, April 18, is Good Friday, the precursor to Easter.

As a little kid, I didn't understand what "Good Friday" was all about. I couldn't see beyond the upcoming Easter egg dying and hunting and the candy I received: Peeps, jelly beans, malted robin eggs, etc. As I got a little older and saw the connection of Good Friday with

Easter, I was just as puzzled. If it commemorated Christ's death, what was so good about it?

As I got even older, however, I began to see the big picture. The seeming tragedy of death on Friday was made good by what happened on Easter Sunday. Christ arose from the tomb that day, defeating Death and making possible eternal life for all who know and accept Christ.

It was all part of God's vast, eternal plan for mankind: the offer of salvation from sin to all who would believe. It was a plan that had been symbolically portrayed in the Old Testament ceremonies and sacrifices, especially the sacrifice of the Passover lamb (Exo. 12:3, 5-7, 46).

It was a plan that had been prophesied by the Old Testament prophets: His being forsaken (Psa. 22) and His suffering (Isa. 52:13-53:12), His being sold for 30 pieces of silver (Zech. 11:12-13), His being pierced (Zech. 12:10) and smitten (Zech. 13:7). And it was a plan in which was fulfilled ever one of those prophecies.

It was a plan that Jesus was incrementally teaching His disciples during His years of ministry on earth, a lesson that they were slow to learn. He had told them that He would be betrayed and killed (Matt. 17:23; 20:18-19). But He also told them that He would rise from the dead three days later. And "All this was done that the scriptures of the prophets might be fulfilled" (Matt. 26:56).

Following His resurrection, Christ appeared to His disciples numerous times, allowing them to see Him and His wounds, even challenging "doubting Thomas" to touch them so that he would no longer doubt the reality of His resurrection (John 20:27). He ate with several of His disciples by the Sea of Galilee, during which time He restored to fellowship a demoralized Peter, who had publicly denied Him three times (John 21:12-19).

The apostle John wrote of these things with one purpose: "that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing ye might have life through His name" (John 20:31).

These are the truths that make "Good Friday" good!

May we all acknowledge and believe unto eternal life!