true love.

​

It's a hard story to read.  And if you don't know how it ends, it really does seem like darkness has overcome and evil wins this one.

 

I always think of the Phil Wickham song, "True Love," on Good Friday:

            Come, close, listen to the story

            About a love more faithful than the morning…

 

As soon as Jesus is taken away from the Garden, he is put on trial.  The only evidence against him is false accusations.  The Jewish crowd that shouted "Hosanna" just a few days earlier was now passionately shouting "Crucify him."  When given the choice, they freed a criminal and condemned Jesus.

 

It seems unjust.  And that's because it is.  He didn't do a single thing wrong, yet he was condemned.  And beaten, and whipped, and crowned with thorns, and forced to carry the cross that would summon Him into death. 

 

You see, here's the thing:  Jesus is God.  He is perfect and righteous.  He shouldn't even be associated with death, because death is the punishment for sin.

 

And even though darkness seems to win on this day, we remember it by calling it "Good."  Although it is a day of mourning, it is so supremely good. 

 

As you read the account in John 19:16-37, the references to fulfillments of prophecy are intertwined.  "John shows us God – working out His purposes in this poor, fallen world.  In a situation where God seems to be completely absent, He has been present for ages." (SheReadsTruth, Holy Week-Day 6)

 

Isaiah 53:5-6, written many years before Jesus walked this earth, reminds us that God has it all planned:

            "But he was pierced for our transgressions;

He was crushed for our iniquities;

Upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace,

and with his wounds we are healed. 

All we like sheep have gone astray;

we have turned – every one – to his own way;

and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all."

  

And when Christ breathes His last words on the cross just before His death, he says only, "It is finished."  It's not just the agony of his death, by which he bore the wrath of God against sin in the place of His people.  His life is literally over, but He has also completed the work of salvation.

 

It is finished.  Once for all time.  His blood, the wrath he bore, it is finished. 

 

He bore it all, completed the work, and we are offered salvation because of it.

 

Is there any better news, anything more "good" than this?

 

 

 

"The earth was shaking in the dark

All creation felt the Father's broken heart

Tears were filling heaven's eyes

The day that true love died

When blood and water hit the ground

Wall we couldn't move came crashing down

We were free and made alive

The day that true love died"

 

Phil Wickham, "True Love"