We had a great Good Friday service, if I may say so myself. :-)
Apart from the regulars and the visitors from the Morice Church, we had two visitors from the community. One is a lady who was on her third visit, so I'm hoping she is getting stuck with us. Another is a man who lives just up the road, we had a nice and looong chat after church. I hope for lots more visitors for the main service on Sunday.
I didn't have this problem for a long time, but I choked a bit during the sermon; now, if the preacher impresses himself to tears, maybe it wasn't too bad. I had lots of people commenting on the sermon after the service.
This is the bit that had me choked:
God came to us, and we arrested Him; we treated Him like a criminal; we condemned Him in a mock trial; we laughed at Him; we slapped Him in the face; we put a crown of thorns on His head; we flogged Him; we spat on him; we pulled the hairs of His beard out; we paraded Him on the streets of Jerusalem, carrying a heavy, wooden cross; we drew nails through His hands and feet; we put Him on a cross, and made Him die a slow, painful, horrible death. We did this to God.
Throughout history, we humans have done a lot of sins. Lying, stealing, murder, adultery, hatred, war, genocide, terrorism, gossip, slander, hatred... the list goes on and on. There are so many bad things we've done. But the worse, the most heinous, the most disgusting sin we have ever done, was that when God came to us, we tortured and murdered Him.
This is what we are celebrating today. Good Friday is the day when we tortured and murdered our God. Good Friday is the day we, the human race, committed the worst sin we've ever done. Good Friday is the day when we rejected God is the worst way possible. All the sin of all of humanity in all of time, culminated in the sin we committed that day.
By all accounts, that should have been the end of the human race. That should have been the day when God would wipe us out of existence; that should have been the day when God destroyed the whole of creation. Because on that day we took our rebellion against God to its final conclusion. That day, we showed God how much we hate Him.
That wasn't “Good Friday” - it wasn't even just bad Friday, or worst Friday – it was the worst day ever. In the whole history of the Universe, that was the worst day.
And God used that day, and He used that sin – the worst sin we've ever done, in order to show us who He is. He took “worst Friday” and turned it into “Good Friday.” He took our worst sin and made it into the gateway for our salvation. He took our worst display of rage and hatred and rebellion in order to show us His love. He took that moment when we tried to break with Him in a complete and final way – and made it into a door for reconciliation. The day we murdered Him, was the day He made it possible for us to become His children.
If we ever wonder who God is, we just have to look at that day. He is the God who would do all that for us – in order to save us. He saw our broken lives, our loneliness, He saw how lost and miserable we are, He saw the tragedy of our lives – and He decided to do something about it. He took the greatest tragedy and turned it into salvation. He took the greatest sin and turned it into grace. He took the greatest display of hate and turned it into love. He came to those who tortured and murdered him, and called us to be his beloved children. He took our hell, and offered us heaven.
