Ladies and gentlemen (and I do mean ladies and gentlemen), I'm not here to give you a sappy message for Good Friday. I have a thousand articles to edit and publish as clown world continues doing its thing.
But understand the moment. The feeling you get when you look up at the stars, watch mist roll off the mountains, stare into your child's eyes, witness a sunset over the rolling waves - all of it pales in comparison to the profundity of what Christ did.
He is the center of history, around which the universe moves.
'All things were created through him, and apart from him not one thing was created that has been created. In him was life, and that life was the light of men. That light shines in the darkness, and yet the darkness did not overcome it.' - John 1:3-5
'He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart; yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end.' - Ecclesiastes 3:11
I cannot sum up the depths of power or mystery at work on this Good Friday. Death is working backwards as we speak. Christ paid the penalty for your sin and my sin. Having committed no sin Himself, he was innocent, and therefore able to break the curse of death and give humanity hope.
I want to focus on this verse that hit me square in the chest this week. 👇
'How, then, would the Scriptures be fulfilled that say it must happen this way?' - Matthew 26:54
There are over 300 prophecies in the Old Testament, spread out over thousands of years, that spoke of the coming of the Messiah.
Jesus fulfilled all of them.
When Peter cut the ear off the high priest's servant, he was trying to protect Jesus. He was trying to fight the chaos, as we might call it today, of clown world.
But Jesus did not need protecting. He pointed out that God could send him twelve legions (tens of thousands) of angels at that very moment. Whether it is a gaggle of guards in the ancient Near East or hypersonic nuclear missiles in 2025, there is no technology or military force of mankind that could challenge God. The idea is beyond laughable.
Instead, Jesus pointed out that he must be arrested and executed. "It must happen this way."
Everything around us looks like chaos. We have Maryland senators down in El Salvador trying to rescue deported MS-13 gangbangers. Former WaPo reporters are fangirling over deranged assassins who murk fathers on the street in cold blood. A man's son was brutally murdered at a high school track meet and the GiveSendGo donors for the killer are trying to ignite an ethnic war in America. The West is being flooded by Islamic hordes who hate Christendom and seek conquest and subjugation. Our leaders are cowards who bow down to the gods of pluralism, genital mutilation, and climate alarmism. Even our local school boards are desperate to allow boys access to our daughters' bathrooms!
Our personal lives, meanwhile, are filled to the brim with sickness and strife. Our bodies are breaking down. Our loved ones are dying. Our homes and clothes are wearing out. Our wallets are thinner. Time slips through our hands.
From misery to misery, history marches on.
The good news amidst this dark realization is that there is a hope - a narrow way through.
As the Apostle Paul told the Roman governor Felix:
I have a hope in God, which these men themselves also accept, that there will be a resurrection, both of the righteous and the unrighteous.
This world once had no hope. If it were not for Christ, none of the battles we fight today would matter. We would be lost in our sin, and our civilizations - great for a moment though they might be - would always and forever be lost to the shadow.
God's plan involves birth pains - the groans of all Creation crying out to be released from its bondage to decay and entropy. Though Christ has come, the world is still suffering. The battle rages on.
In the midst of it, we all have to reconcile with the suffering. We have to decide if God's plan is right and just and loving - or else proclaim ourselves wiser and more compassionate than God and reject Him when bad things happen to us.
How will you respond when clown world takes your health, your money, your loved ones, and your life? Will you curse God like Stalin, shaking your fist at heaven in the hour of your death?
Or will you rejoice, knowing that these things must happen?
From Peter:
You rejoice in this, even though now for a short time, if necessary, you suffer grief in various trials so that the proven character of your faith — more valuable than gold which, though perishable, is refined by fire — may result in praise, glory, and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ.
And from Paul:
We rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope.
My message to you this Good Friday is this:
Learn to suffer well like Jesus Christ, knowing these things must happen before all things are made new. ✝️
P.S. Now check out our latest video 👇
Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Not the Bee or any of its affiliates.
