April 13, 2006

Imagine asking someone how their day was and having them tell you this:
"Well, I was downtown and I saw this kind of unruly mob beating this guy up.
They were merciless.  I thought of intervening by calling for help, but the
people you would call were actually in on beating the guy up.  When they
finally paused momentarily to catch their breath, they did actually report
to an official what was going on.  They didn't have anything to really say
about the guy that merited what they were doing, but they called for him
just to be finished off - that's right, killed.  You wouldn't believe it -
the official actually gave the mob the decision!  Of course, they were in a
frenzy at this point and called out louder and louder for the guy to be
killed.  What is going on with this world anyway?  So the guy ordered some
of his security folks to take the guy out and kill him.  No legal defense,
no "innocent-until-proven-guilty", no anti-death-penalty protestors...  A
few soft-spoken women seemed to be the only ones interested in the guy - in
fact, one of them was his mother I think.  Anyway, they made fun of him,
ridiculed him - how he was even still alive at this point, I don't know -
dragged him outside of town and killed the guy.  I can't believe what I saw.
It was a pretty bad day, I guess you could say."

And they call it "Good Friday".

Our sin deserves the harshest of punishment.  But we have One who was
willing and able to deliver us by stepping in and taking what we deserved.
Jesus endured a day like I described - it was a lot worse, actually.  And
there was our sin - not His, He committed none - our sin, being atoned for,
as Almighty God, in love and mercy towards you and I, poured out His wrath
on His own sacrificial lamb, His one and only Son.  Jesus' enduring of this,
and seeing the mission all the way through to its completion, secured for
you and I THE ONLY HOPE OF FORGIVENESS, and eternal life.

If you're banking on ANYTHING else - your ability to clean yourself up, an
internal sense that you're better than others (or just not as bad as
others), the fact that you have a belief in "God", the fact that you "go to
church", etc., etc., ad nauseum, you are diminishing the importance of what
Jesus did to bring God's grace to you.  Salvation is found no where else and
in no one else but in Jesus of Nazareth, the Son of God, one with the
Father, God in the flesh, the Messiah, the Christ.  He endured what He did
to bring you life, nothing less.

Repent and believe.  That's what He calls for, and neither less nor more
will do.

"Good Friday"?  You betchya'.

May God bless all those who love Him and glorify Jesus Christ His Son.  I
look forward to a wonderful Easter weekend, 2006, together.

In Jesus,
Pastor Lou