A Very Good FridayCarla Harding - 10 Apr 2009

As far as Easter goes, Good Friday has never featured highest on my radar. Ever the eternal optimist I've always been caught up in the miracle and hope of Easter Sunday.  I guess I didn’t want to dwell on the pain and suffering that led to it.  As I invest in my relationship with Jesus today it hurts to consider what it cost Him in the past, but cost Him it did… The eternal, all powerful, loving, righteous God became flesh and made His home with us; lived, loved and went to His death.  The very act of prayer (direct, intimate conversation with the Father) that I’m involved in encouraging is made possible through this act of ultimate love and sacrifice.

Today is a day of truth: ugly and painful, but truth none the less. I was preaching at my Church last Sunday (Revelation Church – one of the birth places of the 24-7 movement) and I deviated from my notes for a moment as I looked ahead to this Sunday. I shared something like this…

“God looked at the world and He made a judgement.”  I paused to take in the faces looking back at me. “He saw the good, He saw the bad.  He saw the evil and He saw our suffering and He decided it couldn’t stay this way.  We sinned, we missed the mark, and we estranged ourselves from God… So Jesus crossed the gap, came to us and gave his life to re-establish the connection, to restore relationship.  In making a judgement, in seeing and admitting our sin Jesus gives us the opportunity to bring it to His cross, let it die with Him, and to walk away into new life.” 

The truth we face today is how much we need this very Good Friday.  

I just returned home from an unique exhibition. Artists from the Revelation Church community have poured their creative talents into installations and mediations that walk us through the Easter events.  The images were evocative and impacting: from an I.V. slowly dripping a blood-like substance over a map of the world, to cross full of nails and covered in photocopied hands.  Dozens of people have walked through those stations in the last few hours, each taking a moment to face the truth for their life.  Some wept, others moved silently, some spent hours returning to stations that impacted them, deep in prayer.  The words, art, music and movement made a sobering and moving journey.

As we enter Easter weekend, before we consider the silence of Saturday and enjoy the celebration of Sunday lets pause to pray the Psalmist’s prayer…

Search me, O God, and know my heart;
       test me and know my anxious thoughts.
See if there is any offensive way in me,
       and lead me in the way everlasting. (Ps139:23-24)

Take a moment now to acknowledge the reasons Jesus needed to walk the path of death for you.  Join me in this day of truth as I leave my mistakes and inaction at the cross with Him…