Good Friday is a celebration of the worst thing that ever happened. The church is gathered, across our town and nation, to rejoice in the most unjust event in human history, when the only man who was ever perfectly innocent was crucified in the place of sinful man. But we don’t celebrate this because we are sadistic, or because we get our jollies from gloating in injustice.
Rather, we rejoice because when Christ was hung on that tree, as the accursed of God, He was suffering there in our stead. It was you and I who ought to have been hung there, with all the just wrath of God poured out upon our pride and perversion, all our greed and gossip, all our envy and evil. So tonight, in remembrance of that great atoning sacrifice, we strike the note of somber gratitude.
Let us sing with our eyes turned in faith toward the only sacrifice for sin: the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom the world is crucified to us, and we unto the world. Let us meditate with joy upon the Gospel story, for the worst thing that ever happened in this world was also the best thing that ever happened to this world.
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