Good Friday musings

Today is Good Friday, a day in which Christians are reminded that their Savior was tortured and executed for them.

I had wondered why we call it "Good Friday", since it normally isn't considered a good thing for someone to face his or her execution (At times, it's obvious that I'm still a toddler in the faith; today happens to be one of those days!); however, it's what happens three days after Jesus' death that makes it "good".

Jesus was resurrected (Latin resurrēctiōn, which is the past-particle of resurgere, which we get "resurge"; that means "to rise again").

Given that Adam (the first man) brought us death (through the sin of disobedience), I think that it's appropriate that the Second Adam (Christ) brought us life.

The Romans were incredibly cruel with their punishments and, morbidly, perfected the "art" of executing criminals; the whippings alone were more than enough to kill a man. With a crucifixion, a criminal was either tied to two beams formed in a T (During the Roman Empire, the style and method of crucifixion changed considerably; they started with a single pole and eventually moved to what's known as a Latin cross; that appears as a lowercase T to us.) or was nailed directly onto the beams (The nails would go through the feet and through the wrists (There are several nerves and ligaments within the wrists that would be destroyed, but no bones would be broken. The bones and muscles that the hand, wrist and arm meet would hold the nail in place.) in order to anchor the poor soul to the beams.); the condemned would actually die of asphyxia (Being hoisted up in that fashion would make the lungs work harder and the person would be taking deeper breaths to compensate; that quickens the person's death in actuality.) and blood loss from the whipping endured prior to the crucifixion.

It was agonizing, to say the least. That's why we have the word "excruciating" in our lexicon today; crucifixion was a horrendous way to die.

Yet, Jesus died this way. For you. For me. With our sins weighing Him down.

The best part of the whole thing is this: He didn't stay dead.

God was gracious enough to forgive us of our sins, but they were placed on His own Son instead.

Read up on Matthew 27 and 28 to get just a foretaste of what our Messiah went through.