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WHAT’S SO GOOD ABOUT FRIDAY?

Today isn’t really a very “good Friday” for a family some of us know here at the Voice of Prophecy. A hairdresser named Tania has been making some of our female employees look real nice these last couple of years. Just a young woman in her mid-twenties. A baby daughter 18 months old, a hard-working, loving husband. And she went in for some very routine cosmetic surgery not too long ago . . . and for no reason people can understand, went into an irreversible coma.

And it seems like every time we find a moment to scan through the Los Angeles Times, the obituary section will list somebody who’s very young. A person in their 30s dies of cancer; a man who just turned forty and has three kids suddenly passes away from pneumonia. And of course, there are always the fatal car crashes, the murders, the drive-by shootings. Why in the world would we ever call a typical day like this “Good Friday”?

In fact, when you think about it, what do you make of a headline where a young man — oh, say 33 years old is all — who has many good friends and people who love him, is wrongfully executed? Lethal injection or the gas chamber. Or a cross. And then later they find out He was innocent; He wasn’t the criminal His enemies said He was. But now He’s dead. And the obituary papers list all of those who mourn Him and miss Him. I guess that’s the story we think about today, isn’t it? This young man named Jesus, still in His prime, right during His most productive years where He’s such a help to thousands, healing people and teaching them and starting a whole movement toward spiritual growth and restoration and wellness . . . and the establishment cuts Him down on that Friday afternoon. They kill Him, and the death certificate signed by the state governor named Mr. Pontius Pilate tells us He was just 33 years old. Not a very “Good Friday,” is it, except for what comes on the following Sunday.

Can you imagine today the most devastating death that could occur in your life — besides your own, of course? Your closest friend; the person who’s nearest and dearest to you. Your soulmate. You couldn’t live without them! Like this young hairdresser, Tania . . . we think about that baby and the young husband who are left behind. Talk about a crushing blow!

But then comes the Resurrection morning! And you’re staggered by the incredible news that your best Friend, the one you loved so much and missed so desperately . . . has returned! He or she is back! In the flesh! Never to leave you again! You know, we just can’t imagine the goosebumps of it all, the tears, the shouts of joy. The sheer exultation. But friend, that’s exactly what the Resurrection of Jesus Christ ought to mean to every single one of us.

And really, the resurrection of our Savior means this too. No problem we can ever have — NOTHING — can ever be a dilemma after the triumph on Easter Sunday. Isn’t that right? Why should we ever think that some hard thing in our lives has got heaven stumped, when God was able to reach down and pull His own Son right out of that tomb, shatter the kingdom of Satan, and establish Jesus on the throne of the universe for all time?

In his marvelous book, Believe In Miracles But Trust In Jesus, Pastor Adrian Rogers talks in a similar vein about a story involving Jesus and His best friend, Lazarus. He starts off with this observation:

“Many people ask, ‘What is the answer to my dilemma?’ The answer to your dilemma is not what, it’s Who. The answer to your problem — any problem — is Jesus.”

And then he takes us back to the Bible story in Mark 2 where some friends brought a man to Jesus on a stretcher. And Pastor Rogers gives us a bit of imaginary conversation between the four guys, starting with the paralyzed man:

“He says, ‘Jesus can’t do anything for me. I am totally paralyzed.’ So one of the four men says, ‘Well, I was blind, but Jesus opened my eyes, and now I can see.’ But the paralyzed man says, ‘That was just your eyes. I’m paralyzed all over.’ The man carrying another corner of the stretcher says, ‘Wait a minute. Let me tell you about my withered arm. Jesus straightened and healed my arm.’ The paralyzed man objects again. ‘That was just an arm. My entire body is paralyzed.’ The third man says, ‘I was deaf, but Jesus opened my ears.’ The paralyzed man is still not convinced. After all, opening ears is not as hard as healing a paralyzed body. [But] imagine the fourth man carrying the fourth corner of the stretcher saying, ‘Healing a paralyzed body is no problem for Jesus. I know that because my name is Lazarus, and I was dead.’”

And Adrian Rogers almost shouts out in all capital letters: “END OF DISCUSSION!!”
And then he concludes:

“I don’t care what situation or crisis you face — the One who can raise the dead is the answer. No problem is too big for Him.”

And certainly during this most important weekend we can also add: “The One who Himself was raised from the dead is CERTAINLY the answer.” Friend, you and I have a Savior today, living today, who has proved that death and every human problem smaller than death are not a difficulty for Him. He’s conquered death, and Satan the architect of death, and all of the subsidiary industries of death: cemeteries and mortuaries and hospitals and sin and suffering and the whole thing. That’s why today, when we think about the cross of Christ, is “Good Friday.” It’s good because the story doesn’t end on the cross, as all of the liberal theologians would have you and me believe. It doesn’t end on Easter Sunday when Jesus came out of the tomb. It didn’t end at the Ascension when Jesus returned to heaven; it didn’t end on the Day of Pentecost. Friend, it won’t end until Jesus has come back to redeem you and me and take us to the homes made eternally secure from attack because He conquered death.

Today I want to exhort each of you listening. Let’s never give away or surrender the doctrine of the Resurrection! Why would we prefer a dead peasant poet in the grave over the living King Jesus on His throne in heaven and living right now in the throne of our hearts? Would we rather have the collected rhymes and sayings of a deceased desert philosopher, or have the living Word of God, made real by the presence of the living Christ who dwells within us?

The Bible tells us what a clear and simple choice this ought to be for us. In Ephesians 1:19, the apostle Paul writes about the “(quote) incomparable power of God.” And he tells us two things: that power is offered to us, and that power is also plainly linked to the Resurrection. We’ve been saying all week that if God can’t even raise up His own beloved Son, then He’s nothing; He’s impotent; He’s powerless. But notice these two remarkable verses:

“I pray that you . . . may know His incomparable great power FOR US who believe. That power is like the working of His mighty strength, which He exerted in Christ when He raised Him from the dead and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly realms, far above all rule and authority, power and dominion, and every title that can be given, not only in the present age but also in the one to come.”

Isn’t that an exciting promise? And isn’t this, after all, “Good Friday” as we take hold of it?

I guess some people on occasion embrace a new religion which has about as much impact as reading a new message in a Hallmark card, or turning the page in a book and finding a sort of nice new poem. And they say, “Well, that’s kind of helpful. ‘Eat more vegetables. Love the planet.’” Which, if Jesus were a dead hero and all we had were Jesus-isms and those poems and platitudes, would be the extent of the Christian faith’s power too. I love, though, how evangelical writer John Stott shatters that timidity in his book, The Contemporary Christian. Notice:

“We are always in danger of trivializing the gospel, of minimizing what God is able to do for us and in us.” We’ve thought about that a lot this week, haven’t we? He goes on: “We speak of becoming a Christian as if it were no more than turning over a new leaf, making a few superficial adjustments to our usual patterns of behavior, and becoming a bit more religious.” Like reading a new poem, maybe. “Then scratch the surface, crack the veneer, and behold! underneath we are still the same old pagan, unredeemed and unchanged. But no, becoming a Christian according to the New Testament is something much more radical than this. It is a decisive act of God. It is nothing less than a resurrection from the death of alienation and self-centeredness, and the beginning of a new and liberated life. In a word, the same God of supernatural power, who raised Jesus from physical death, can raise us from spiritual death. And we know He can raise us because we know He raised Him.”

So you see, you take all that power which brought Jesus out of the tomb — and all that power is unleashed in your life: to make you brave, to make you loving, to turn you into an unflinching but forgiving person. Resurrection power from Easter Sunday is your power day by day, every day, for every moment of your living and serving that risen Savior.

Ken and I — here in this little radio booth — want that power in our lives. Right now. Here on Friday, December 19. Friend, won’t you join us?