Good Friday? GREAT Friday.

Every once in a while I like to break out a book by Max Lucado.  (It’s not difficult – he publishes a new one roughly every 27 minutes.)  Recently I read Next Door Savior and the following rattled my cage.  I thought it was an entirely appropriate reminder as we focus on Calvary today…

See Christ on the cross?  That’s a gossiper hanging there.  See Jesus?  Embezzler.  Liar.  Bigot.  See the crucified carpenter?  He’s a wife beater.  Porn addict and murderer.  See Bethlehem’s boy?  Call him by his other names – Adolf Hitler, Osama bin Laden, and Jeffrey Dahmer.

Hold it, Max.  Don’t you lump Christ with those evildoers.  Don’t you place his name in the same sentence with theirs!

I didn’t.  He did.  Indeed he did more.  More than place his name in the same sentence, he placed himself in their place.  And yours.

With hands nailed open, he invited God, “Treat me as you would treat them!” And God did.  In an act that broke the heart of the Father, yet honored the holiness of heaven, sin-purging judgment flowed over the sinless Son of the ages.

And heaven gave earth her finest gift.  The Lamb of God who took away the sin of the world.

“My God, my God, why did you abandon me?”  Why did Christ scream those words?

So you’ll never have to.