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Silent Saturday And the Grief (and Hope!) of Good Friday. · Every Church Flourishing by the Great Commission Association

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Speaker0: Leaders and pastors find health, encouragement, practical advice,
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Speaker0: soul care, and resources that work together to build up your local fellowship
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Speaker0: and the broader kingdom of God.
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Speaker0: Join hosts, Pastor Chris Cole
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Speaker0: and Dr. Chase Thompson from the Great Commission Association, led by Dr.
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Speaker0: Mike Stewart, as they explore the frontiers of ministry and aim for the goal
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Speaker0: of making every church flourish.
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Speaker0: Hello, everybody, and welcome in to episode number, oh, well,
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Speaker0: actually, this isn't really an official episode of the Every Church Flourishing
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Speaker0: Podcast brought to you by the Great Commission Association.
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Speaker0: Let's just consider this a bonus episode.
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Speaker0: Last night, I recorded a Facebook Live on Good Friday, and I thought I would
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Speaker0: share that meditation with you today.
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Speaker0: We're going to talk about grief, the grief of Good Friday, the extended silent
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Speaker0: Saturday that all of us are going through, and the hope that comes from Resurrection Sunday.
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Speaker0: So thanks for listening. Here we go. I want to open with Matthew 27.
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Speaker0: Read a pretty good chunk of scripture.
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Speaker0: So as I read, I would encourage you to visualize this in your mind and even
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Speaker0: put yourself there at the scene, beginning in verse 27.
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Speaker0: Then the governor's soldiers took Jesus into the governor's residence and gathered
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Speaker0: the whole company around him. They stripped him and dressed him in a scarlet robe.
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Speaker0: They twisted together a crown of thorns and they put it on his head and they
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Speaker0: placed a staff in his hand and
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Speaker0: they knelt down before him and they mocked him. Hail, King of the Jews.
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Speaker0: Then they spat on him, took the staff and kept hitting him in the head.
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Speaker0: After they'd mocked him, they stripped him of the robe, put his own clothes
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Speaker0: on him and led him away to crucify him.
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Speaker0: Verse 32, as they were going out, they found a Cyrenian man from Africa named Simon.
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Speaker0: They forced him to carry his cross. And when they came to a place called Golgotha,
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Speaker0: which means place of the skull, they gave him wine mixed with gall to drink.
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Speaker0: But when he tasted it, he refused to drink it.
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Speaker0: After crucifying him, they divided his clothes by casting lots.
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Speaker0: Then they sat down and were guarding him there. and above his head,
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Speaker0: they put the charge against him in writing, this is Jesus, the King of the Jews.
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Speaker0: And two criminals were crucified with him, one on his right and one on the left.
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Speaker0: And those who passed by were yelling insults at him, shaking their heads and
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Speaker0: saying, you who would destroy the temple and rebuild it in three days, save yourself.
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Speaker0: If you're the son of God, come down from the cross. In the same way,
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Speaker0: the chief priests with the scribes and elders mocked him and said,
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Speaker0: he saved others, but he can't save himself.
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Speaker0: He's the king of Israel. Let him
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Speaker0: come down now from the cross and we will believe him. He trusts in God.
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Speaker0: Let God rescue him now if he takes pleasure in him. For he said, I'm the son of God.
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Speaker0: In the same way, even the criminals who were crucified with him taunted him.
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Speaker0: From noon until three in the afternoon, darkness came over the whole land.
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Speaker0: And about three in the afternoon, Jesus cried out in a loud voice,
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Speaker0: Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani, which is, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
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Speaker0: When some of those standing there heard this, they said, "'He's calling for
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Speaker0: Elijah.' And immediately one of them ran and got a sponge, filled it with sour
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Speaker0: rind and put it on a stick and offered him a drink.
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Speaker0: But the rest said, "'Let's see if Elijah comes for it.' But Jesus cried out
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Speaker0: again with a loud voice and gave up his spirit.
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Speaker0: And suddenly the curtain of the sanctuary was torn in two from top to bottom.
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Speaker0: The earth quaked and the rocks were split.
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Speaker0: The tombs were also opened and many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised.
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Speaker0: And they came out of the tombs after his resurrection, entered the holy city, and appeared to many.
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Speaker0: And when the centurion and those with him who were keeping watch over Jesus
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Speaker0: saw the earthquake and the things that had happened, they were terrified.
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Speaker0: And they said, truly, this man was the Son of God.
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Speaker0: That is the word of the Lord from Matthew chapter 27. the writer Ashley Gibson
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Speaker0: says that we live in a culture that tends to rush past suffering.
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Speaker0: Whether it's uncomfortable stories on the news, loved ones walking through difficulty,
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Speaker0: or our own seasons of adversity, it's easy to wish we could fast forward.
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Speaker0: Yet suffering is unavoidable, even in the Christian life.
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Speaker0: On Good Friday, it's not lost on us that we can inadvertently hurry past the
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Speaker0: suffering Savior because, hey, we know the resurrection is coming.
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Speaker0: Praise God for that. And as we look forward to that joy and celebration.
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Speaker0: Christ's suffering and his death and his agony on the cross can sort of feel
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Speaker0: like a footnote to the story.
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Speaker0: But Friday comes before Sunday and death comes before resurrection.
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Speaker0: And if we neglect to rightly see the suffering of Christ, then we will fail
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Speaker0: to fully understand him and what the cross itself represents.
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Speaker0: We'll lose sight of the depth of joy of what the resurrection is.
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Speaker0: And not only that, we will miss the solace offered.
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Speaker0: By our suffering Savior. Earlier today in Birmingham, Alabama.
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Speaker0: My daughter Abby said goodbye to one of her best friends from early childhood into early adulthood.
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Speaker0: My wife sat in the hospital room with her parents as Maggie,
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Speaker0: a young lady that's not even 25 yet, prepares to leave this world.
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Speaker0: When my wife Janet called me to tell me about it, just hearing the description
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Speaker0: of that moment impacted me physically.
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Speaker0: It caused tears and dizziness and cramping and emotional pain.
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Speaker0: I wasn't even in the hospital room with them as friends and family were telling Maggie goodbye.
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Speaker0: As of this moment, as far as I know, she has not left this world yet,
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Speaker0: but All indications are that her departure is imminent.
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Speaker0: And words are not powerful enough to convey how I feel about that disaster.
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Speaker0: I can't imagine a worse thing. Really, I mean, this is not hyperbole.
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Speaker0: I can't imagine a worse thing than parents losing their precious child.
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Speaker0: And I imagine my dear friends, Nick and Lisa, are feeling emotions and grief
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Speaker0: on a level far beyond what I can honestly imagine right now.
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Speaker0: A writer named Kirsten Black reminds us that Jesus told his disciples exactly
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Speaker0: what was going to happen to him.
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Speaker0: In Mark 9, 31, Jesus said, the Son of Man is going to be delivered into the
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Speaker0: hands of men. They will kill him.
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Speaker0: Yet, when Jesus was arrested, the disciples scattered in terror as their beloved
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Speaker0: leader was tried and killed.
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Speaker0: Thursday night into Friday, they had to have been full of trauma and disbelief
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Speaker0: as the one whom they loved and the one whom they really worshipped and looked up to was arrested,
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Speaker0: tortured, convicted of crimes he didn't commit and crucified.
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Speaker0: And despite the fact that Jesus told his followers what would happen,
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Speaker0: they were bewildered and confused and overwhelmed with grief.
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Speaker0: And I don't imagine they thought Jesus was lying.
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Speaker0: They just couldn't comprehend it. It was so overwhelming.
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Speaker0: And that might seem a little weird to us just reading the story because,
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Speaker0: you know, thinking about how the disciples were surprised and shocked by the crucifixion of Jesus.
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Speaker0: I mean, he told them like a bunch of times, hey, I'm going to Jerusalem and
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Speaker0: they're going to kill me. But.
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Speaker0: I get it because he's told us something similar in John 16, 33.
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Speaker0: Jesus told his disciples and his future disciples, followers of Jesus,
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Speaker0: us, in this world, you will have tribulation.
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Speaker0: It's a promise.
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Speaker0: And Peter tells us that we should not be surprised at the fiery trial that is
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Speaker0: happening to us as though something strange were happening to you.
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Speaker0: And I said it before, I'll say it again now, pretty much every time my family
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Speaker0: or I go through a fiery trial, I'm always surprised.
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Speaker0: Jesus promises it's coming. Peter says, hey, don't be surprised. It's not strange.
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Speaker0: And when it happens to me and those close to me, it's like I'm shocked.
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Speaker0: And I cannot think of a fierier trial than losing a child, losing a spouse,
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Speaker0: or many of the difficult things that people who are watching this now or will
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Speaker0: watch it later have experienced.
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Speaker0: And I am not going to do something trite like suggest today that Good Friday
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Speaker0: is a curative for that grief.
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Speaker0: Now, hear me out. That would be too simple, and I think it would be incorrect as well.
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Speaker0: The simple fact of Christ dying on the cross, it does.
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Speaker0: It has profound, immeasurable, world, universe-shaking impact.
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Speaker0: It opens the door for eternal life for all who look to him in faith believing,
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Speaker0: but it does not, and I'm saying this according to what the Bible says,
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Speaker0: it does not immediately relieve all of our pain and grief and trauma.
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Speaker0: And anybody that tells you that it does, either doesn't understand the Bible
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Speaker0: or they're treating the gospel like a used car salesman treats a used car.
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Speaker0: What the crucifixion does do, rather than immediately erasing our pain, our grief and trauma,
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Speaker0: does point us to the reality of a soon coming cure.
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Speaker0: California Baptist pastor Shadrach Meshach Lockridge,
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Speaker0: an African-American pastor who lived in San Diego, popularized the saying you
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Speaker0: might have heard of before, it's Friday, but Sunday's coming.
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Speaker0: And yeah, his real name was Shadrach Meshach Lockridge, which is an awesome
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Speaker0: name, Shadrach Meshach.
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Speaker0: And I guess I kind of feel bad for Abednego because that is the funnest name to say.
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Speaker0: But in Shadrach Meshach Lockridge's sermon that you've probably heard parts
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Speaker0: of before, he says this, and he says it in a better voice than I have.
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Speaker0: I'm sorry for my inferior sermonizing here, but he says, it's Friday.
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Speaker0: Jesus is praying. Peter's asleep.
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Speaker0: Judas is betraying, but Sunday's coming. It's Friday.
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Speaker0: Pilate's struggling. The crowd is conspiring. The crowd is vilifying.
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Speaker0: They don't even know that Sunday's coming.
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Speaker0: It's Friday. The disciples are running like sheep without a shepherd. Mary's crying.
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Speaker0: Peter is denying, but they don't know that Sunday's coming. It's Friday.
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Speaker0: The Romans beat my Jesus.
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Speaker0: They robe him in scarlet. They crown him with thorns, but they don't know that
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Speaker0: Sunday's coming. It's Friday.
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Speaker0: See Jesus walking to Calvary, his blood dripping, his body stumbling,
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Speaker0: and his spirit burdened.
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Speaker0: But you see, it's only Friday.
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Speaker0: Sunday is coming. It's Friday. The world is winning. People are sinning,
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Speaker0: and evil is grinning. It's Friday.
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Speaker0: The soldiers nail my Savior's hands to the cross. They nail my Savior's feet
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Speaker0: to the cross, and then they raise him up next to criminals. It's Friday.
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Speaker0: But let me tell you something, Sunday's coming.
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Speaker0: Now, like I said, I wish I could say it in Shadrach Meshach's awesome voice, but you get the point.
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Speaker0: On April 3rd, 33 AD, things looked bad for Jesus's followers.
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Speaker0: Their Lord was dead and their hope was gone.
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Speaker0: But we know something they didn't fully realize, that Sunday was coming and
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Speaker0: it would change change everything for them, and it would change everything for
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Speaker0: the world. What about Saturday?
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Speaker0: I remember a movie when I was a kid. I grew up in the Friday the 13th movie
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Speaker0: eras, and at some point somebody made a spoof movie called Saturday the 14th
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Speaker0: because everybody was like, we forget Saturday and that whole thing.
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Speaker0: And it's almost as if the Bible forgets that whole Saturday.
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Speaker0: There's nothing in the Bible about that Saturday. What was going on as the disciples
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Speaker0: were stewing in their hopelessness. They weren't waiting for anything because it really appeared.
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Speaker0: They did not believe that Jesus was coming back from the dead.
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Speaker0: Indeed, I know the women were there on Sunday morning, but the Bible is very clear.
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Speaker0: The only reason they were there is they were going to embalm and prepare his
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Speaker0: body with burial spices and cloths for permanent burial.
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Speaker0: The guys weren't there. They were whatever, holed up, sad, lonely, you name it.
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Speaker0: The ladies went, but not because they had great faith. They went to finish the job of burying Jesus.
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Speaker0: So what happened on that silent Saturday?
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Speaker0: What were they thinking? What was going through their minds?
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Speaker0: I mean, we can only imagine because the Bible doesn't talk about it,
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Speaker0: but I imagine they cried.
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Speaker0: They stared at the walls.
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Speaker0: They were paralyzed with grief. They probably prayed.
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Speaker0: They shook with pain and hurt. I bet they doubted.
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Speaker0: And I bet they were angry because all of that happens when you go through grief.
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Speaker0: And almost certainly they were confused, scared, hopeless, bewildered,
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Speaker0: and utterly demoralized.
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Speaker0: It was an awful, silent Saturday.
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Speaker0: And then Sunday came. I think that silent Saturday, not mentioned in the Bible, is very significant.
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Speaker0: And it's very significant that it's not mentioned in the Bible because we are,
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Speaker0: especially those of us whose life has been so stamped by grief,
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Speaker0: we are all in a similar silence, the silence of Saturday.
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Speaker0: And some of us are in it far deeper than others.
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Speaker0: I'm not sure if Shadrach, Meshach, Lockridge,
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Speaker0: preached that sermon about, it's Friday, but Sunday's coming,
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Speaker0: before Martin Luther King Jr.
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Speaker0: Preached what I'm about to read to you or vice versa. But those two guys were friends.
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Speaker0: They both influenced each other, preached in each other's churches,
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Speaker0: that kind of thing. And Martin Luther King Jr.
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Speaker0: Captures the essence of that silent Saturday in a sermon he preached in Montgomery,
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Speaker0: Alabama, my home state, in 1957.
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Speaker0: And he also talked about the silent Saturday without mentioning it in the context
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Speaker0: of the African-American struggle for the civil rights that they were due.
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Speaker0: He says this, you know, every now and then, my friends, I doubt.
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Speaker0: Interesting to hear a preacher say
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Speaker0: that, I doubt. Every now and then I get disturbed myself, says King Jr.
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Speaker0: Every now and then I become bewildered about this thing. I begin to despair every now and then.
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Speaker0: And I wonder why it is the forces of evil seem to reign supreme and the forces
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Speaker0: of goodness seem to be trampled over.
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Speaker0: Every now and then I feel like asking God, why is it that over so many centuries,
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Speaker0: the forces of injustice have trampled and triumphed over the Negro and he has
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Speaker0: been forced to live under oppression and slavery and exploitation.
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Speaker0: Why is it God? Martin Luther King Jr. asked in 1957,
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Speaker0: why is it simply because some of your children asked to be treated as first-class
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Speaker0: human beings, they are trampled over,
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Speaker0: their homes are bombed, their children are pushed from classrooms,
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Speaker0: and sometimes their children are thrown into the deep waters of the Mississippi.
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Speaker0: Why is it, oh God, that that has to happen.
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Speaker0: And King says, I begin to despair. Sometimes it seems like Good Friday has the throne.
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Speaker0: It seems the forces of injustice reign supreme, but then in the midst of that,
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Speaker0: something else comes to me, and I can hear something saying,
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Speaker0: King, you're stopping at Good Friday, but don't you know that Easter's coming?
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Speaker0: Don't worry about this thing. You are just in the midst of the transition now.
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Speaker0: You are just in the midst of Good Friday now, but I want you to know,
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Speaker0: King, that Easter is coming. Martin Luther King Jr.
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Speaker0: Preached hope to himself, and the hope wasn't made up. It was resurrection hope
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Speaker0: in light of the resurrection of Jesus.
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Speaker0: And the fact of the matter is many of us are in that reality now.
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Speaker0: We're living in the reality of a very long extended Friday and a seemingly silent
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Speaker0: Saturday. We're believers in Christ. We trust in him. We look to him.
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Speaker0: We believe his resurrection, but grief screams loudly in our lives.
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Speaker0: Sometimes, oftentimes, times. It's the only sound we can hear.
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Speaker0: Maybe we've lost a child. Maybe we've lost a spouse.
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Speaker0: Maybe we're overwhelmed by injustice in the world.
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Speaker0: Maybe we're overwhelmed by a terrible injustice in our own life.
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Speaker0: And like Martin Luther King Jr., we begin to doubt.
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Speaker0: Our heart begins to slide away and become cold and just so overwhelmed with
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Speaker0: pain. It just is hard to feel anymore.
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Speaker0: We stare at the walls like the disciples did on Silent Saturday in Deep and Utter Despair.
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Speaker0: Tim Challies, the Reformed blogger, pointed me to a book by a lady named Heather
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Speaker0: So, S-O, Heather So called The Suffering of a Child, and I bought it this week.
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Speaker0: Now, Dr. Heather So is a counselor. She's a writer, but more importantly, she's a mom.
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Speaker0: And a few years ago in 2022, I think it was 2022, her precious
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Speaker0: daughter Emily, who was only four, was diagnosed with a very aggressive brain
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Speaker0: tumor and given a terminal diagnosis.
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Speaker0: And her book, The Suffering of
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Speaker0: a Child, is basically Heather's journaling through her daughter's death.
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Speaker0: And it's profoundly gut-wrenching to read, but it's also as real as concrete and metal.
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Speaker0: And in this book, we see a family that is shook by an F5 tornado of trauma and death,
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Speaker0: and yet in the midst of enormous heartache and pain that still remains to this
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Speaker0: day, of course, and probably will remain until Jesus comes back and wipes every tear from our eye.
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Speaker0: This family, the So family, clings to Christ.
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Speaker0: Shortly after her daughter's death, Dr. So wrote this, and I warn you,
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Speaker0: it's not over brimming with hope.
19:54
Speaker0: It's reality of grief on a silent Saturday. She says.
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Speaker0: Suffering is awkward, and everyone maybe must make their own private piece with it.
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Speaker0: I can sense the people who are uncomfortable or unfamiliar with suffering.
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Speaker0: Some people have a pained look when they see our family now,
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Speaker0: or others may ask me how I am, but their expression is high-pitched and bubbly,
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Speaker0: begging me for a positive reply.
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Speaker0: When Emily was alive, at times I would show tears or struggle,
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Speaker0: and there were some people who immediately plastered me in positivity. You'll be okay.
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Speaker0: She'll be okay. Or you have to make the most of the time.
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Speaker0: Or now, just weeks after Emily died, I sometimes get the at least comments.
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Speaker0: Like, at least she's not suffering now. Or at least you had five years with
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Speaker0: her. or at least she's in heaven now.
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Speaker0: Sometimes I get religious plastering too, like God will use her suffering or
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Speaker0: you'll see her in heaven soon.
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Speaker0: And Dr. So says, I know for some seeing our sadness makes them uncomfortable.
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Speaker0: They keep me at arm's length. Maybe suffering has not been made their acquaintance
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Speaker0: yet. I can understand, but I also feel their distance.
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Speaker0: So what do we do when those close to us are walking in the middle of not the
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Speaker0: valley of the shadow of death, but the valley of death. Dr. So gives some advice.
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Speaker0: She says this, a comforting presence with few words.
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Speaker0: Because words don't heal broken hearts.
21:38
Speaker0: A comforting presence with few words is such a valuable gift when you are mourning.
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Speaker0: The friends and family who don't feel the need to say much to me,
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Speaker0: who can just sit with me as I cry or hold my hand for even a few seconds,
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Speaker0: the people who hurt with us, these simple moments mean the most to me.
21:57
Speaker0: When our spirits are quiet and present with each other.
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Speaker0: There's no whitewashing of the pain.
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Speaker0: It's just allowed to be, and it is enveloped in their love.
22:09
Speaker0: We humans, especially those of us who have never experienced colossal levels
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Speaker0: of grief and tragedy, we're not comfortable with suffering. We're scared of
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Speaker0: it, and we want it to stay away.
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Speaker0: And Good Friday, the Garden of Gethsemane, the crucifixion and And the empty
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Speaker0: tomb does not yet wipe every tear away, and it does not yet cure every heartache.
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Speaker0: That won't happen until Jesus comes back. That's how I read Revelation 21 and 22. But—.
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Speaker0: Does demonstrate the depth and the power and the intimacy and the tangibility
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Speaker0: of God's great love for his people.
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Speaker0: And that profound love, when we see it, when we see it clearly,
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Speaker0: gives us real hope in the midst of raging seas.
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Speaker0: And in that mindset, I want to finish with a brief meditation on the love of
23:05
Speaker0: God as demonstrated in the Garden of Gethsemane.
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Speaker0: And about the garden, C.S. Lewis said this, I get no further than Gethsemane,
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Speaker0: and I'm daily thankful that that scene of all others in our Lord's life did not go unrecorded.
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Speaker0: Charles Spurgeon in 1855 says this about the Garden of Gethsemane,
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Speaker0: see him as he drinks the cup in Gethsemane when the fluid of that cup mingled
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Speaker0: with his blood and made each drop a scalding poison.
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Speaker0: See how each nerve is twisted and contorted with his agony.
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Speaker0: Behold his brow covered with sweat. Witness the agonies as they follow each
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Speaker0: other into the very depths of his soul.
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Speaker0: Oh, the deep, unutterable, ah, that wrestling God, man, that suffering man of Gethsemane.
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Speaker0: Weep over him, saints. Matthew 26, 39, Jesus prayed in the garden,
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Speaker0: let this cup pass from me.
24:06
Speaker0: Here's an honest confession from me.
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Speaker0: That I hope my five kids quickly forget if they happen to be listening to this.
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Speaker0: I do not like saying no. Of course, I do say no to that which harms them. At least I try to.
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Speaker0: But even then, when I say no, there's some twinge of pain, some cramp in my
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Speaker0: emotions when I refuse an earnest request.
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Speaker0: And I hope I'm not permissive. Sometimes the kids think I'm overly strict.
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Speaker0: But just truth be told, I would always rather say yes than say no.
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Speaker0: And perhaps that's why Gethsemane is so profoundly arresting to me when I read it.
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Speaker0: When we look to the garden where Jesus prayed to let the cup pass and the Father said no,
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Speaker0: we begin to grasp the height of the Father's love for his people and the depth
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Speaker0: of Christ's sacrifice for us.
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Speaker0: A love that caused the Father to utter a resounding no to a bloody.
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Speaker0: Tiered request made by the only perfect Son to ever exist.
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Speaker0: Search the internet, and you're going to find tons of excellent,
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Speaker0: probably thousands of excellent, needful exhortations to look to the cross.
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Speaker0: And there's songs about looking to the cross in YouTube videos,
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Speaker0: and thousands of sermons in my Logos library tell me,
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Speaker0: to look to the cross. And there's not even one.
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Speaker0: In my Logos library, there's not one single reference in all those thousands
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Speaker0: of sermons to look to the garden.
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Speaker0: That's what I'm going to ask you to do now as we close out. I'm going to ask
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Speaker0: you to look to Jesus in the garden to understand the profundity,
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Speaker0: the depth, the magnitude of the Father's love for his people.
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Speaker0: Prayerfully focus your hearts on the scene from Mark 14, 33,
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Speaker0: which says, Jesus began to be deeply distressed and troubled.
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Speaker0: He said to them, I am deeply grieved to the point of death.
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Speaker0: Going a little further, he fell face down and prayed, My father,
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Speaker0: if it is possible, let this cup pass from me, yet not as I will, but as you will.
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Speaker0: So the son knows what is coming, and it is not just the tearing whip,
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Speaker0: the crushing crossbar, the disgusting gall on the sponge, the spear thrust.
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Speaker0: The beating with a stick, the pulling out of his beard, the hammer nails,
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Speaker0: but the punishment that brought us peace, plus all of the pain of the Roman execution.
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Speaker0: Jesus foresaw, before it happened, the terror of separation from his father,
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Speaker0: along with being saturated to the depths of his soul with the sins of humanity, and he was staggered.
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Speaker0: Luke 22, 44 says, being in anguish, he prayed more fervently and his sweat became
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Speaker0: like drops of blood falling to the ground.
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Speaker0: Well, if you're a dad, you know the battle. Your kids are pleading with you,
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Speaker0: begging, Dad, please, and your resolve weakens and hear.
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Speaker0: Jesus, the perfect, pleasing Son of God,
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Speaker0: is not asking for a car or a Nintendo Switch 2 or some frivolous thing,
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Speaker0: but he's asking to avoid the greatest suffering that would happen in all of
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Speaker0: human recorded history.
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Speaker0: The most innocent being that ever walked the face of this earth is about to
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Speaker0: undergo the most heinous punishment ever, and he's asking his loving and abounding
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Speaker0: in mercy father for relief.
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Speaker0: What will the answer be?
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Speaker0: And the answer is nothing.
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Speaker0: Silence. The heavens are brass. And it appears that the only answer the son
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Speaker0: of God hears is the unmistakable sound of soldiers' boots marching into the garden to arrest him.
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Speaker0: Either way, he knew there would be no reprieve, no last minute call from the
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Speaker0: governor, execution was imminent.
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Speaker0: And this is why Good Friday is so very good for us, because God the Father so
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Speaker0: loved his people that he gave his son.
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Speaker0: We were bought with a price, says the Apostle Paul, and Jesus paid that entire
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Speaker0: price, an infinite God suffering infinitely to atone for the sins of billions. A Good Friday.
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Speaker0: So friends, even in the midst of your grief and your suffering and your sorrow
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Speaker0: and your trials and your trauma and your heartache, if you're going through
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Speaker0: that, look to the garden and revel and rejoice and remember.
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Speaker0: Even celebrate, even though your heart is burdened by grief.
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Speaker0: Romans 8.31, if God is for us, who can be against us?
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Speaker0: He who did not spare his own son, but gave him for us all, how will he not also
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Speaker0: along with him graciously give us all things? So, a poem.
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Speaker0: Look to the garden and celebrate how love held back heaven's rescue,
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Speaker0: allowing the bitter cup to flow freely to the cross.
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Speaker0: Christ's payment crushed death's weight.
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Speaker0: Beneath the olives, midnight learned to kneel, and heaven kept silence, hard as brass.
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Speaker0: The moon laid down its thin, accusing steel on vines that watched the son of
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Speaker0: sorrows pass. He did not fear the timber or the thorn, as mortals fear the dark, the tomb.
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Speaker0: He saw the ancient covenant torn, so thieves like me could live and bloom.
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Speaker0: There in the garden's bruised shade, the second Adam bent where we once stood.
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Speaker0: The first reached out, and the world was frayed. The second came,
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Speaker0: and sweat came like blood.
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Speaker0: O Father, here is love beyond our speech. Not that you spared the holy from
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Speaker0: the rod, but that your terrible mercy chose to reach through forlorn prayer to ransom us to God.
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Speaker0: So let me look before I'm undone, past cross and hammer to that gnarled stave
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Speaker0: where God said no to his son and yes to those he saved.
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Speaker0: Thank you for listening. I hope that today was a good Friday for you.
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Speaker0: I hope that you find, even though you might be going through a long,
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Speaker0: extended, silent Saturday of grief and pain and trauma and what else,
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Speaker0: I hope that you find in Good Friday today and Resurrection Sunday,
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Speaker0: I hope that you find the hope that you need in Jesus to persevere until he comes
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Speaker0: back and himself wipes every tear from our eyes. Thanks for watching.
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Speaker0: Good day to you and Godspeed.