2026 04 05 - What Are You Thinking About? - Popp

What's so good about Good Friday?

The first Good Friday didn't seem very good, did it? If we had been in Jerusalem on that fateful day, this is what we would have seen and heard. Jeering crowds, lying witnesses and crooked politicians.

Shouts of we want Barabbas and crucify him.

Brutal torture. Eyes swollen shut, skin ripped apart, bloody bruises, Horrible screams. Sharp thorns and heavy nails. Slow, agonizing death.

A grieving mother. Shouts of derision and, of course, darkness.

Whatever else you might say about that day, nothing seemed good at all. That's why it has been called by so many other names, such as Sorrowful Friday or Long Friday or Holy Friday, and sometimes even Black Friday. But we call it Good Friday. And we tend to look forward to Fridays because it marks the end of the work week and the beginning of the weekend. And sometimes we say TGIF for thank goodness it's Friday.

Because when we say that we're looking forward to something we're planning to do that weekend, perhaps a ball game or take in a concert or. Or go to the beach. But none of these things applied to Jesus.

Good Friday was a day of extremes. Darkness and light, hope and sorrow, evil and love, anger and forgiveness.

But I found tucked away in First Corinthians, chapter 2, verse 8, a tiny little phrase that helps us understand Good Friday a little bit better. Speaking of the rulers of this world, Paul says they did not understand God's wisdom because if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.

If they had let that thought hang in the air for a moment. If they had understood, if they had known, if they had appreciated, if they had accepted the mystery of God, if they had known God's plan from the very beginning.

But they didn't.

This means that Pilate didn't really know who Jesus was. Yes, he had heard the stories. He heard the wild rumors about healings and miracles and even raising people from the dead. And you could hardly keep those kinds of things silent because they spread like wildfire. But when you read the Gospels, Pilate comes across as a tortured soul, a man who was caught between the demands of his job and a genuine curiosity about Jesus.

What is truth? He asked. It was not an idle question. I believe that Pilate sincerely meant it and wanted to know the answer. But when he washed his hands with water, he was trying to say, I did the best I could to save this man, but I couldn't.

His blood is now on your hands. But that didn't work for Pilate, because Pilate stands guilty of of a terrible crime, the crime of crucifying the Lord of Glory.

Exactly who he thought Jesus was we cannot say for certain. But this much we know, he didn't know. He didn't understand.

And so he ordered Jesus to be crucified.

If they had known. If only they had known. An old Negro spiritual says it. This sweet little baby boy, they made you be born in a manger. Sweet little holy childs.

Didn't know who you were. Didn't know you came to save us, Lord, to take our sins away. Our eyes was blind. We couldn't see. We didn't know it was you.

If only they knew.

So we crucified him.

That's what we did on that first Good Friday.

And let us not shy away from that little word, we. It would be a huge mistake to pin the death of Jesus on someone else, like the Romans or the Jews or the soldiers. Of course, they all had their part to play. Remember when Peter preached that powerful sermon on the day of Pentecost? His audience was some of the very people who had cheered the death of Christ just a few weeks earlier.

It was then that Peter summarized the crucifixion. This with the help of lawless Gentiles, you nailed him to the cross and killed him. And when the early Christians prayed for God's help during their persecution, they put it this way. Herod Antipas, Pontius Pilate, the governor, the Gentiles and the people of Israel were all united against Jesus, your holy servant, whom you anointed. That one sentence implicates everyone.

The Romans and the Jews and the whole nation of Israel. But that's not all. In both instances, the Bible looks upon the plans of evil to be the Lord's hand at work, as Peter continues to say in that sermon at Pentecost. But God knew what would happen, and his prearranged plan was carried out when Jesus was betrayed. You see, Jesus death was not an accident.

As if everything had spun out of control. He died according to God's prearranged plan, and he could not have died otherwise. It was the way it was supposed to be. His death took place at the hands of lawless men who stand guilty before God for sure. But God used those wicked men and those wicked deeds and crucified the Son of God to bring salvation to the world.

He did not die because he could not help it. He did not suffer because he could not escape. He did not hang on that cross because he was powerless. All the soldiers of Pilate's army could not have taken him if he had not been willing to be taken, they could not have hurt a hair on his head if he had not given them permission.

So what is so good about Good Friday? It is good because it is God's Friday. When Jesus died on that cross, it was not some afterthought in God's plan. Rather, his death was God's plan. That's what he intended.

As we heard before, Isaiah says, all we, like sheep, have gone astray. We have turned everyone to his own way, and the Lord has laid on him the iniquities of us all.

If you want to go to heaven, you pay attention to that verse because it begins with an all and it ends with with them all. The world didn't understand that first Good Friday because it didn't know who Jesus was. And 2000 years have come and gone, and the world still doesn't get it.

One thing we learn about God is that things are not always the way they seem to be. And if we focus only on the horrific circumstances surrounding the crucifixion of Jesus, we risk missing the whole point. Because nothing happened that day by accident. Out of Jesus, death comes life. And every blow that strikes the Savior was a fulfillment of God's plan.

Yes, it was a dark Friday. Yes, it was a suffering Friday. Yes, it was a long Friday.

But it was more than that. Because behind the horror of Golgotha stood the Lord God in heaven, who was pleased to crush his only son for our sakes. God knew what he was doing throughout the whole day. The world thinks there's nothing so ugly as a cross. But through the miracle of divine grace, the cross became the emblem of God's love.

Because when men do their worst, God does his best. And God's best is always good. So the hero dies for the villains. The just one dies for the unjust. The innocent son dies and we are saved.

That's why we call it Good Friday. Amen.