Good Friday

Here we are at the strangest Good Friday I've ever experienced in my lifetime.

It's probably the same for you, if I had to guess.

It doesn't even quite seem like Friday. (This is true of all my days right now; I rarely know what day it is.) It doesn't seem like a holiday. But then again, it seems strange to label the day of Jesus' crucifixion a holiday. 

We can't be part of a Good Friday service - at least in person. I know there are some online we can attend. And in two days, we'll celebrate an Easter Sunday morning from home. I won't have a new dress, and we won't sing the grand Easter anthems. We won't have Easter baskets to exchange, because Ryan's the designated shopper for our household, so I couldn't shop for one. I'll make our meal, and we'll take our annual Easter photo in front of a tree or a wall or whatever the weather allows.

Yes, it's a strange year.

But that's probably what Jesus' disciples thought on that original Good Friday. It was anything but good for all of them. The strangest day they'd ever experienced in their lifetime. Probably didn't even seem like a Friday - but maybe they had lost all track of days anyway. And it sure didn't feel like the middle of Passover.

This year, we got a new piece of art for our home, and it has driven my thoughts for this entire Lenten season. Lindsay Sherbondy is the artist, and it's titled It Is Finished. It hangs beside our TV, and since I've been working from home, I have been looking at it frequently throughout each day.

It's always dangerous, I think, to talk about a piece of art when you're not an artist, because the chances of totally misinterpreting the intention of the composition are pretty high.

But on this Good Friday, I want to share my thoughts...and the way it has spoken to my heart.

The dark scribbles of sin spread wide and deep beneath the cross, and it reminds me of the enormity of what Jesus bore that day. Not just my sin from my little life - but all of the sin from all of the people throughout all of their lives from all of forever. 

It's a massive amount of sin.

And in that art print, the blob of sin smacks me in the face. It's messy and massive. 

And yet above it stands the cross, and below it are the words it is finished...

Sin sandwiched between the words and the actions of the cross.

Sin trapped by redemption. 

And that is the truth of this Good Friday - and this entire weekend. It doesn't matter that our days won't look like the Easter week celebrations we've always crafted for ourselves. 

It matters that sin was squeezed into suffocation by the sacrifice and shout of Jesus.

That hasn't changed.