What Was Good About Friday?
It was day much like yesterday. Clouds had gathered, and the winds were blowing. A storm was imminent.
Jesus had been welcomed into Jerusalem earlier in the week by a crowd of followers who celebrated him as King of the Jews. But the Powers-That-Were in the Jewish hierarchy believed such an assertion had the potential to bring down the wrath of the Roman government upon the Jewish nation, and they weren’t about to jeopardize their good standing in the Roman Empire. Or was it that Jesus challenged their own rule-making and rule-keeping regimens?
Fear provoked anger in the hearts of men who studied God but did not know Him.
By noon on Friday, Jesus was hanging on the cross, and the world became black as coal as God turned away in sorrow and grief.
Jesus poured out his life on the cross to pay the penalty for sin for each of us who believe in him for forgiveness. God, the Trinity, had planned on God the Son dying for us from the beginning of time, His life for our redemption.
Yet, I wonder, God being God and knowing what He knows about me and the world, and the meanness in men and women then and to come, if He had any regrets during those dark moments that Jesus was tormented and tortured.
God gives us the capacity to connect deeply to Himself and to others. Sin results in death and the the loss of our connectedness.
Without the cross, both our disconnectedness to God because of sin and our disconnectedness to loved ones because of death would become permanent.
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It was on a cold day in February when my telephone rang and I answered it cheerfully, knowing by ringtone it was my daughter, Traci. Her voice was strained and barely audible. I couldn’t have heard what I thought I heard. Could she repeat what she just said?
“Anni is dead. Can you come get Emmi?”
My only response before I hung up the phone was, “I’m coming.”
My prayer through tears and gritted teeth and stifled screams during the 15 minute drive to Brian’s and Traci’s home was, “God, no! No, God! No!
Anni Flora, whose name means “glorious flower,” was our precious miracle baby. She would have been four months old had she lived another day. Her conception was a miracle because Traci had suffered many years with endometriosis. Traci then spent several weeks of her pregnancy in the hospital with pre-eclampsia. Little Anni arrived by C-section five weeks early on October 19, 2012, weighing a little over 3 pounds. She was beautiful, and we fell in love with this tiny fragile blessing. Her mother and father sat with her in the NICU, day after day, touching her tiny body through holes in her incubator.until she was strong enough to be cuddled.
I will never forget, while sitting with Traci in the hospital, being able to hold our baby for the very first time.
We were encouraged as Anni reached one benchmark after another. When she was barely under five pounds, Brian, Traci and Emmi got to take her home. It was just in time for Thanksgiving, and what a time of thanksgiving that was!
On Thursday evening February 16, I was privileged to babysit for my two granddaughters. We snuggled on the sofa, Anni on my arm, Emmi beside us. I played patty-cake with Anni. She was beginning to hold her head up well, and she smiled as I clapped her tiny hands together.
Less than 48 hours later, our Anni would be in heaven. That Saturday, Traci had laid her in bed for a nap, and when she went back to check on her, Anni had died in her sleep.
Her sister Emmi, who was five, asked, “How did Anni leave here? Did she and the angels fly right through the front door?”
It was too soon. We had not expected to be blessed with another baby, but when we were, letting go of her was excruciating.
For the men and women who sat around the table with me in grief class, for all who have lain prostrate or curled in a fetal position and swallowed sorrow at the passing of your child or grandchild, husband, wife, mother, father, grandparent, or other person you loved more than life itself, there is good news.
God’s story does not end with the cross and darkness.
Christ is alive! His resurrection secured victory over death for us and for our believing loved ones.
The Gospel song writer Bill Gaither penned these words,
“Then came the morning, night turned into day;
The stone was rolled away, hope rose with the dawn;
Then came the morning, shadows vanished before the sun,
Death had lost and life had won, for morning had come.”
But let me reveal to you a wonderful secret. We will not all die, but we will all be transformed! It will happen in a moment, in the blink of an eye, when the last trumpet is blown. For when the trumpet sounds, those who have died will be raised to live forever. And we who are living will also be transformed. For our dying bodies must be transformed into bodies that will never die; our mortal bodies must be transformed into immortal bodies. Then, when our dying bodies have been transformed into bodies that will never die, this Scripture will be fulfilled: “Death is swallowed up in victory. O Death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?” For sin is the sting that results in death, and the law gives sin its power. But thank God! He gives us victory over sin and death through our Lord Jesus Christ. So my dear brothers and sisters, be strong and immovable. Always work enthusiastically for the Lord, for you know that nothing you do for the Lord is ever useless. I Corinthians 15: 51-58
Hold on; Easter is coming. Life is here. The victory is ours.
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