When you are afraid, anxious, worried, or depressed, do you ever think about Good Friday?
Jesus had been arrested, condemned, and crucified. Darkness was over the land and the hope of Jesus’ disciples was crushed. Has your hope ever been crushed? If so, you can identify with how the disciples felt. What’s good about a Friday like that?
Good Friday part 1 – Jesus announced the end of that day by saying, “It has been and remains finished.” Jesus is our substitute under the law from eternity. Jesus was rejected and forsaken by His Father and died so that we never, ever would. There is a profound difference between feeling like you are forsaken and actually being forsaken. The darkness of Good Friday brings us back to honesty about dependence on God.
Good Friday part 2 – Three days (by Hebrew calculation of time) passed before Jesus showed Himself alive to His disciples. Three days. Often, time seems to stand still when we are distressed, but the world still turns and the sun still shines, even when we can’t see it. Jesus rose from the dead and brought joy to His disciples, joy that no one can take away.
The truth is that we possess a human nature that cannot rid itself of fear, anxiety, doubt or depression any more than we can rid ourselves of the corruption we inherited from Adam.
The good message is that God has and continues to regenerate our souls, the essence of who we are. The darkness we might feel is opposed by the light of God’s Word and grace at work inside of us and by the bright light of God’s Son and the day of our redemption from outside of us.