What's so 'Good' about Friday?

What good could possibly come from a day on which humanity killed its creator?

Colossians 1:21-23, which we’ve been studying in our CONNECT small group Bible studies, helps us understand part of the answer,

Once you were alienated from God and were enemies in your minds because of your evil behaviour. But now he has reconciled you by Christ’s physical body through death to present you holy in his sight, without blemish and free from accusation – if you continue in your faith, established and firm, and do not move from the hope held out in the gospel.

There are four quick things to say about this passage. There’s a ‘before’, an ‘after’, a ‘because’ and an ‘if’.

The ‘before’ is the depressing threefold description of what we used to be like. Like all of humanity, we were alienated from God, enemies in our mind and evil in our behaviour. That’s not a pretty picture. And we may read it and feel hard done by, or somewhat misrepresented. But, when we stop and think about it and we’re honest with ourselves, we realise that the cap fits. We haven’t always felt comfortable when the subject of God comes up. We were resistant to the idea that somehow we were answerable to him. And we were often ashamed by some of the things in the way we therefore lived. That’s the ‘before’.

But wonderfully there’s an ‘after’. Those very same people, Paul says, are holy in God’s sight, without blemish and free from accusation. In other words, God has chosen them to belong to him. Every last stain or trace of moral filth has been removed. And no one has got anything on us anymore. That’s quite a transformation. How can the very same people be so very different? What accounts for it?

This is the ‘because’. It’s because of the reconciliation brought about through Christ’s physical death. On the cross a monumental swap took place. Jesus became us so that we could become him. He became sin and was punished in our place. And we became righteousness so that we could be reconciled to God. That’s why this particular Friday was good. ‘Good’ doesn’t really do it justice, does it? The Bank Holiday should be renamed the Greatest Friday!

But there’s an ‘if’. And the ’if’ reminds us of our responsibility to keep on keeping on. Paul puts it this way, ‘if you continue in your faith, established and firm, and do not move from the hope held out in the gospel’. There’s nothing like the hope held out to us in the gospel. It makes no sense whatsoever to go anywhere else, does it? Where else are you going to get the kind of swap given to us in Christ?

Our Good Friday online meeting was a terrific encouragement to remember that Christ’s death brings forgiveness to us. If you missed it, it’s on YouTube here.