On this day about 2000 years ago, your friends must have been so devastated. Their dreams and best hopes for deliverance were crushed, their hearts were broken by the death of their best friend. Certainly, they were confused. They had seen you raise a man from the dead, give sight to the blind, walk on water. Yet you did not use this power to prevent your capture, torture and death. How could you save the world if you were DEAD? Peter must have felt particularly awful, thinking about how he had fulfilled your prophecy by betraying you three times. And the others had just slunk away not knowing what to do.
How sorrowful your poor mother must have been. She must have recalled your miraculous birth, the angel that TOLD her that you were the Messiah. Could she have been delusional when she had those angel visitations? How could you be the Messiah if you were hanging there DEAD? And if it were all just a dream, how could she have become pregnant? She knew that she had not been with a man before she was pregnant.
There were so many ways that she had watched you and KNEW that you were special.
She had seen you turn water into wine, heal the sick. How could those things have happened if you were not GOD’s son? But how could God’s son be dead?
You had always been so kind to her, so considerate. And now she would have to bury you. NO mother should have to bury her child.
This was the darkest day of her life- the darkest day in the history of the world. Her hopes and dreams of yearning for the Messiah were crushed.
They had been so cruel to him- those soldiers. How could any man withstand such a beating? She shivered thinking about it. It was so cold without him. Even the sky had gotten pitch black in the middle of the day.
How could she manage to go on? This was such a dark day this Friday- such a bad day.
And what do we call this day today? Good Friday!!!
What transformed this horrible day—the worst in the history of the world into a day that the world celebrates as “Good Friday”?
Mary woke on Sunday perhaps exhausted from too little sleep. There was something she must do. She must anoint the body. Who would go with her to move that huge stone? His disciples were hiding. They may not want to be seen near the tomb. But one last time she simply MUST do something for him. It was the last thing she could do for him.
The man asked who she was looking for. “He is not here. He has risen”.
Risen? What did he mean – risen? Just like he woke up and got up? That would mean he was alive? How could that be? Surely someone was playing a trick?
And then she saw him. “Mary, it is I.”
He had overcome death. That changes everything. EVERYTHING.
She must tell someone. She must tell EVERYONE. He was dead and now he is alive.
That changes everything.
Friday changed everything. GOOD Friday.
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