Good Friday, what's so good about it?

Honestly, Good Friday seems like an ironic name to me. What's so good about an innocent man being beaten half to death, then nailed to a cross to wait for Him to die?

Here is what I think:

God is a just, loving, Holy God.

He created Adam and Eve to have humans to love. He created the earth and everything on it. The problem was, the enemy was already here. He used to be an angel, but at some point decided he wanted to be God...so God sent him out of heaven.

Maybe God thought His humans and the enemy, who is also His creation, could just be peacefully together. I'm not sure.

BUT... (You knew that was coming, right?) God gave us humans a free will. He did not create robots to just love Him and do whatever He said to. 

When Adam and Eve sinned, they and their sin needed to be covered, so God killed the first animal to do that. From that moment on, the sacrifice of an animal was done in order to ask God's forgiveness of sin.

Fast forward to Abraham and Issac. In that day and time, people believed in many gods. (Notice the little g.) They believed in sacrificing their children to these gods, one in particular was for rain. 

When God told Abraham to go sacrifice Issac, he went, because it wasn't an unusual request. He probably was thinking that this God was different though..so I'm sure he was surprised. THEN, for the first time, God provided a ram.

That whole event was a foreshadowing of what God had planned. God was sending His own Son as a sacrifice to die for everyone's sins once and for all. That meant no more animal sacrifices. 

Jesus, throughout His ministry, did nothing but good. The one time He got mad was in the temple because the people were selling the animals that you could buy for sacrifices in there. That's not the right place to do that. But, it was greedy on their part. God wanted their own animal...it needed to be personal.

I work at a church. We had a man call this week and ask to speak to the Pastor, but he was out at funeral grave site service. He was angry saying that these Pastors make Jesus out to be some whimpy girly man because they say He was sweating blood and not wanting to go to the cross. Jesus was a human being too. He knew how bad it was going to be. Luke records in Luke 22:42, Jesus says, "Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me; yet not my will, but yours be done."

Jesus was, dare I say it, anxious. He was praying and asking God to figure out some other way for this if it was possible. But God wanted everyone forever and forever to have the chance to be free from sin and in a right full relationship with Him. Jesus had to do that for us.

The whole sacrifice thing sounds barbaric to us in 2015. But it was a way of life. You can read any history book about other false little g gods and see what people did thinking it would make a difference.

What's so good about Good Friday, is that Jesus paid a debt you and I couldn't pay. He took it for us so we wouldn't have to sacrifice anything. And it's a forever deal. No "take backs" on this one.

God loves us so so much.