Why Good Friday is Beautiful

Today is Good Friday; one of the most holy and powerful days in the Christian faith. 

Good Friday is the day that Jesus was brutally beaten, whipped 39 times by Roman soldiers, made fun of by the people who surrounded him, was betrayed by his best friends, and was left to die slowly on a cross for 3 whole hours. 

The Romans used crucifixion because it was a slow, and painful way to die. The purpose of the whipping, and the way they crucified people in those days was designed to be as painful as possible.

When Jesus was hanging up on the cross, he cried out in desperation, "My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?" When the people around him were yelling at him, and spitting on him; when the Romans were putting nails though his hands he cried out through the torture, 

"Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do."  

You might be thinking to yourself, "How could this ever be beautiful? This is horrible."

But this is the most beautiful thing anyone has ever done for me.    

Jesus died for my sins, BUT this is NOT about guilt. This is NOT about how "bad" we sometimes think we are. 

This is beautiful because it's about love. 

It is about the purest, abundance of love we could ever receive.

   

The truth is that I do things I shouldn't do, but 

Jesus died, so I could have an open relationship with Him.  

This is about of love.

Do you know why Jesus did that? Do you know why Jesus went though all that pain?

because he loves us.

Because Jesus died on the cross so we could be free. Jesus died on the cross so we could be free from the things we do that we are wrong. 

I picture it this way. I see myself standing in front of  God, and every time I sin, it's like a piece of garbage get's put in between God and I. When Jesus died, he took that huge pile of built up garbage, and took it away FOREVER; I don't have to worry about it anymore. 

It was like Jesus and God were sitting in heaven and said to each other, "You know what? We love Tinamarie so much, that we want her to have a real, honest, and close relationship with us. We don't want her to feel guilty all the time, we don't want sin in the way of our love for her! We want her run into our arms, but she can't do that with all this sin in her life, it just gets her down. It gets in her way." Then I can picture God looking at Jesus and saying, "You know what you're going to have to do right?" and I see Jesus saying, "Yes. I will die for her."

Jesus died for me, because of that, I do not live in fear of the bad things I've done. Because Jesus died for me, I know that I am loved beyond all compare. 

That's beautiful.