Good Friday means we mourn and rejoice at the same time. In
our mind’s eye we picture the agony of our Savior. We think of His being
betrayed and humiliated.
We see Pilate's attempt to release Him, and hear the crowd
screaming back, Crucify Him.
We watch the torture of His scourging—how they whipped Him nearly to death, His back a
bloody mess, down to the bone. And how they mocked Him and spat upon Him, and
then, finally, we shudder when they crucified Him. By sundown He was dead.
But we rejoice, too. Because we know on this day our salvation
was secured, our debt was paid, God's wrath was propitiated, our justification
was accomplished. All by the blood of the Lamb.
Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us--for it is written, "Cursed is everyone is hanged on a tree" (Galatians 3:13, ESV).
I don't like to think about it, but I was under a curse. And so were you. And on that day my Savior took it instead. Scripture says He became a curse for us.
It's bad enough to be cursed, especially a curse earned by someone else. A whole lot of someone elses. But how do you become a curse?
Perhaps the Son so identified Himself with the festering, oozing, disgusting, mass of our sins that, to the Father, Christ was that sin. All that offends God, all that calls down His wrath, all the pride, rebellion, phoniness, hypocrisy, lust, murder, and a million other transgressions, was reckoned unto Jesus. And the curse that fell, the righteous wrath, became Him, too.
Whatever "becoming a curse means," what He accomplished is gloriously certain: Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law. He did what no one else could do or would do--He paid it all and set us free.
Good Friday. The best.
