Easter is the most important of the Christian holidays. The
events of Holy Week (from the triumphal entry into Jerusalem on a
Sunday to the resurrection of Jesus on the next Sunday) take up
about a third of the story in the gospel records. Easter is so
holy that Christians have traditionally observed 40 days of
fasting (called Lent) leading up to this most glorious of days.
Good Friday (the Friday before Easter) celebrates the fact
that Jesus died for us. He did this for one simple but awesome
reason: to prove how much He loves us, and how much the Father
who sent Him loves us.
The cross on which Jesus sacrificed Himself is rightly the
symbol of Christianity. No other religion and no other philosophy
contains this central truth of Christianity: to love is to serve
others, even to the point of laying down our lives for them, and
God Himself is Love and is the Servant of those He created. To be
like God, we must be servants.
We are called to be followers of Jesus the Christ. To do
that, we must gaze at His amazing love and His amazing
self-sacrifice. We must gaze at Him on the cross, suffering and
dying among and for sinners.
We must watch Jesus become nothing--a dead body lowered by
friends and placed in a grave.
We must gaze at the cross of Christ, examining that perfect
love from every angle.
Look into the face of the one who died for you, and is
calling you to become a true child of God, with Jesus as your
brother.
Follow Him, and take up your cross for others, just as He
did. Whoever takes up the cross of Christ defeats sin, just as
Christ did.
Let the truth of God's love in you set you free from the sin
that oppresses you.
Accept a crown of thorns in this world, and accept the
painful piercing and the helplessness that this world gives you.
But the wonder of it all is that the cross is not the last
word. Good Friday is followed by Easter. You cannot get to Easter
except through Good Friday, but Good Friday does not remain and
Easter is forever.