Good Friday: Preparing Our Hearts for Easter
- trinityobiorah
- Apr 15, 2022
- 4 min read
Hello!
Today is Good Friday, a special day that marks Jesus' suffering and crucifixion on the cross for our sins. Hopefully, you've already started preparing your heart for Easter and meditating on what Christ did for us on that wretched yet beautiful cross, but if not, it's not too late to begin.
There are a couple of things I would like us to reflect on today, but please do some more reading on your own. Study the Bible, pray, reflect, and don't just feel sorry or sober, but ask God to show you yourself in events, in the people who sent Jesus to the cross.
THE LAMB:
It's not uncommon to refer to Jesus as the Lamb of God, especially around this time of year because we can interpret Jesus going to the cross to die for our sin as parallel to the lambs the Israelites would sacrifice on the altars for purification and forgiveness of their sins. But Jesus is not just the lamb because He died on the cross, but He died on the cross because He is the lamb (Roy and Revel Hession; The Power of the Blood of the Lamb). Jesus was meek, gentle, humble, and lowly. As people - the very people He was dying to save - spat on Him, flogged Him, cursed, and mocked Him, He did nothing in retaliation even though He very well could.
One thing that has stood out to me more this year was the fact that Jesus did not have it easy going to the cross, starting all the from the Garden of Gethsemane where Jesus sweated blood and tears. According to Dr. Alexander Metherell, this is a known medical condition known as hematidrosis. It's highly uncommon but usually occurs when there is a high degree of psychological stress, which causes chemicals to be released in the sweat glands. They break down the capillaries there, so the sweat produced from those glands comes out slightly bloody. This was not just an addition the Gospels made to show that Jesus was a "superhuman" who could sweat blood.
Jesus dreaded the cross so much that He asked His Father to "remove the cup" from Him, but what He added afterward was even more important, "Nevertheless, not my will, but yours, be done," (Luke 22:43 ESV). Jesus submitted to the will of the Father, and He did this out of love for us.
Similarly, as His disciples, we're called to humility, to surrender our wills to God; those are the kinds of traits written in Galatians 5 as the fruit of the Holy Spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.
"We have only to walk in the light and be willing for God to reveal any sin that may be in our lives, and we shall find ourselves asked by the Lord to perform all sorts of costly acts of repentance and surrender." (Roy and Revel Hession; The Power of the Blood of the Lamb)
FOLLOWER OR ADMIRER:
"It is not adherents of a teaching but followers of a life Christ is looking for... Christ came into the world with the purpose of saving it, not instructing it."
- Soren Kierkegaard; Followers, not Admirers
The main difference between a follower and an admirer is this: a follower strives to be like the one they follow, to walk in their footsteps, while an admirer keeps a safe distance, remaining personally detached.
To follow Jesus is certainly no easy task, perhaps that's why many of us (including myself quite often) opt for admiration. But as Soren Kierkegaard once again wrote in Followers, not Admirers, "No, there is absolutely nothing to admire in Jesus, unless you want to admire poverty, misery, and contempt."
To follow in such humility as described previously would mean essentially making yourself an easy target in this vicious world. Living in lowliness and rejecting the world along with all its treasures; that's certainly not easy either! To make sacrifices, take up our own crosses, and allow Christ to rule our lives, not easy at all!
Yet, this is what Christ calls us to. Will you answer?
FORGIVENESS:
I assume we all already know quite a bit about forgiveness, but I would just like to point out that Jesus prayed on the cross for the forgiveness of those who crucified Him. "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do." (Luke 23:34 ESV) Jesus teaches us too to forgive in the famous Sermon on the Mount, and it is another one of those things that are definitely not easy. It might help to remember that "forgiving is not ignoring wrongdoings, but overcoming the evil inside us and in our world with love... When we forgive we set ourselves free from the demon of bitterness. But we also set loose the power of love in the world." (Johann Arnold, The Power of Forgiveness)
There is so much more to reflect on in all this than what I have written, and I really encourage you to do so. I wish you a very happy Easter celebration! Peace and love of Christ be with you all!
EXTRA RESOURCES:
The Case For Easter by Lee Strobel
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