Preparing for Good Friday

He will swallow up death for all time, And the Lord God will wipe tears away from all faces, And He will remove the reproach of His people from all the earth; For the Lord has spoken. Isaiah 25:8

Holy Week. A time when my heart wanders and dives into the reality of Jesus more than normal. I look to Jesus arriving in the town on a donkey, I read the conversations he had with his disciples, I wonder how he must have felt in those last few days. It’s almost more than my human heart can bear. But I think about it, I ponder it, because by faith this is the homestead from which I live: Jesus dying on the cross for my sins, satisfying the Father’s wrath that should be toward me, making a way for me to connect and know the Trinity, to enjoy Him for all eternity.

The cross is our only air in God’s presence. It is the only connector, the only bridge. Jesus’ death on the cross, his willingness to die, having his Father forsake him, makes my heart hurt. Tears brim my eyes as I wonder what it would’ve been like to witness that day. The cross is my everyday fuel, it’s the fire behind my joy, my comfort, my conviction, my passions. He made a way. He died, and he gloriously resurrected.

I wonder about how the death of Jesus on the cross transforms every single detail of my day. Does it? Do I grasp its magnitude, the reality that holds me together every single day? The Grace and peace and love and compassion and strength that I can intimately know every single second…. God’s Spirit… inside my soul because Jesus died on the cross and rose again.

What effect does the cross have on the ways I spend my time, how I set my priorities, make my decisions?

“To take up your cross is to consider it better to die than to live for something other than Jesus.” Richard Chin

“The Christ we embrace every moment, and the Christ we look to for help in the future (whether ten seconds from now or ten centuries from now), is the crucified and risen Christ.” John Piper, Future Grace

This week I reflect on the events of the upcoming Good Friday, Jesus on the cross. I am overwhelmed with thanksgiving, and praise, and sadness, and awe.