Santo Viernes – Good Friday

Hello, all y’all!

We love the hearts that our boys have for Jesus. On the day that Jesus was crucified, we are focusing on Christ and the immense love that God has for us all. They are often exploring and thinking of who He is on a deeper level and we wanted to share some of their thoughts on Good Friday. I have often found that no matter how much I “think” I know about the Bible and Christ, I can learn a great deal from my sons as they ask and explore some of the tougher questions about our faith in Christ. Through their eyes, I grow closer to Jesus as they search scripture for truth about who He was and what He said. I hope that you all enjoy learning alongside us as they share their thoughts about Good Friday! This is unedited and straight from their keyboards to y’all. =)

Mason and Carter – what does Good Friday mean to you?

Carter: To me, Good Friday is the commemoration of Jesus’s crucifixion and death on Calvary, and one of the most important events to ever happen in human history. Thousands of years of struggles, victories, defeats, prophecies and blessings had led to the events on that day. His death on the cross fulfilled those ancient prophecies, but was also a day of extreme grief; it was as if the earth itself was mourning, letting everyone know what had been done to the Son of Man. Is it a day of celebration, of recognizing that God kept His promise of salvation to His people? Or is it a day of tragedy, when the world called for the blood of the God who loved them?

Mason: Good Friday is very important to me because of what it means: Jesus Christ, equal to God and being God, came down from perfection to live among men, loving those who hurt Him and His followers, knowing that He would die the most painful death known to man so that they could experience eternal life with God. Isaiah 53:3-10 says: “He was despised and rejected by mankind, a man of suffering, and familiar with pain. Like one from whom people hide their faces he was despised, and we held him in low esteem. Surely he took up our pain and bore our suffering, yet we considered him punished by God, stricken by him, and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was on him, and by his wounds we are healed. We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to our own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all. He was oppressed and afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth; he was led like a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before its shearers is silent, so he did not open his mouth. By oppression and judgment he was taken away. Yet who of his generation protested? For he was cut off from the land of the living; for the transgression of my people he was punished. He was assigned a grave with the wicked, and with the rich in his death, though he had done no violence, nor was there any deceit in his mouth. Yet it was the LORD’s will to crush him and cause him to suffer, and though the LORD makes his life an offering for sin, he will see his offspring and prolong his days, and the will of the LORD will prosper in his hand.” Isaiah describes the Messiah as being familiar with pain, and that he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities. He had also done no violence, nor had there been any deceit in his mouth. Paul wrote further in Philippians 2:6-8: “Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death– even death on a cross!” This further confirms that Jesus was God but instead humbled Himself to a servant (a human) and became obedient to death on a cross.

Knowing that this was His plan the whole time is astounding! Jesus, equal to God and being in very nature God, came down to earth, which was and still is today wrought with sin and pain and sadness and brokenness, for the purpose of dying on a cross, a death so painful that people had to come up with a new word to describe the pain (excruciating), just so the people who spit on Him and hurt and even killed His followers could have the chance to be with Him in heaven!! To experience God’s peace and happiness forever! He loves us so much that He stepped down from heaven to give the people that dislocated his arms and ripped the skin off him and drove nails through his arms and feet to leave him to hang for hours until he died a chance to be happy forever. That thought is crazy to me! To think that I, despite my sin and being deserving of death, can go to heaven with God forever is overwhelming, let alone because of what had to be done for me to go there. There is no other love like that.

John 15:13-16: “Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. You are my friends if you do what I command. I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you. You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you so that you might go and bear fruit– fruit that will last– and so that whatever you ask in my name the Father will give you.”