Good Friday 2022

“It is finished” (Jn. 19:30 ESV).

This is the sixth saying of Jesus upon the cross. Just a single Greek word: tetelestai [τετέλεσται]. Not a cry of the vanquished, one having lost the battle; rather, the pronouncement of the Victor, who has triumphed.

Messiah’s mission, work, and vocation culminates with His own death upon the cross. He is the quintessential Suffering Servant (Isa. 53:4-6). He is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world (Jn. 1:29). He is the Son of God who redeems us from our servitude to the law and brings us to the Father as adopted sons and daughters (Gal.4:4-5). The cross is where Jesus completes the work of redemption.

Today is Good Friday. I ask myself, “What is so ‘Good” about ‘Good Friday’?” This day is extraordinary because it remembers the day in which Christ finished His work of redemption. The Son provides the way for me to come to the Heavenly Father through the power of the Holy Spirit.

Messiah’s mission to the cross is an example set for me. Jesus bids me to deny myself, take up my cross, and follow Him. I must confess that it is not I who live but Christ lives in me. He must increase, and I must decrease.

This is hardly any ordinary Friday. This is the commemoration of the Friday which changed everything. The heavens and earth shook when Christ was crucified and the aftershocks are still reverberating throughout time and space. The Epistle to the Hebrew’s tells us: “When Christ had offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God, waiting from that time until his enemies should be made a footstool for his feet” (Heb. 10:12-13, ESV). The cross is D-Day — the decisive battle. D-Day assures us of V-Day — the final victory when the Lord appears a second time to judge the living and the dead.

— WGN