The Joys of an Exultant Good Friday!

He Is Risen! He Is Risen!

Even on Good Friday, it is true that the price of our redemption has been paid by Christ! Sometimes we think that if we meditate on the passion of Christ enough it will help us to appreciate the price of our Salvation. He paid it all! Every drop of the cup of the wrath of God is drunk by our Lord Jesus on our behalf. We are redeemed and we are not paying Him back by suffering with Him on Good Friday or for the 40 days. We are not investing partly in our redemption by doing so.

I fear that so often I have been guilty of needing to flagellate myself because I felt that Jesus required it from me for some part that He hadn't accomplished. Maybe I am not really grateful if I don't do the stations and follow him foot to foot in His sacrifice, or follow every word of the seven last words to the furthest point. Am I paying part? Am I understanding the gravity of my deserts? If I am doing the former, I am deceived. If I am learning the latter, I am in the rights. It is not the doing or the not doing, but why that is important. I cannot pay God for my redemption. I cannot invest part in my Salvation. I cannot ever fully understand. But I can rejoice in spirit, like the man born blind and be in the right. Or I can sit sullen and identify with my Savior and know that I didn't deserve what He bore and ask for the grace to rejoice, when it truly sinks in. Both are right responses, depending on your growth in grace.

Don't judge your sullen neighbor or your hedonistic brother, when you are not in his shoes.