For This Reason I Kneel
Tony Nester
Ephesians 3:14-21
How are we supposed to feel on Good Friday?
Some have told me that they stay away from church on Good Friday, even all of Holy Week, because hearing about the cross makes them feel so terribly sad. They can hardly bear to sing ''Alas! And Did My Savior Bleed'' for it makes them tremble with grief.
Without question sorrow and grief are apart of what we are meant to experience on this night. It is in looking at the cross of Christ that are eyes are opened to the enormity of our sin. The cross of Christ reveals that only the death of the pure and holy Christ of God could atone for the iniquity of us all. Only when we see how great a price was paid for our salvation do we understand just how horrendous is our sin.
Dr. Frank Harrington was until his recent death the senior minister of the Peachtree Presbyterian Church in Atlanta, Georgia. Every Lent he and his wife arranged to have a massive cross planted on the front lawn of the church to catch the attention of passersby. The cross is furled in purple until Easter Sunday, when the Harringtons arrange with a florist to have the giant cross festooned in flowers of every color and hue.
Once, a new city bus driver was guiding his bus down the street by the church. He wasn't familiar with the church's tradition of its Lenten cross on the lawn. It was in the middle of a conversation when he suddenly saw the huge cross. At that moment he interrupted what he had been saying and shouted out, ''My God, somebody BIG must have died.'' [1]
He was thinking of those little crosses we see on roadsides that people put up when someone they love has been killed. Good Friday is when we remember that somebody big did die for you and for me - the Son of God. Only someone that big could save us from the sin that has separated us from God.
And yet, we are not meant, to be left feeling only sorrow and grief. This is not only a night of sadness, but gratitude and e ...
Tony Nester
Ephesians 3:14-21
How are we supposed to feel on Good Friday?
Some have told me that they stay away from church on Good Friday, even all of Holy Week, because hearing about the cross makes them feel so terribly sad. They can hardly bear to sing ''Alas! And Did My Savior Bleed'' for it makes them tremble with grief.
Without question sorrow and grief are apart of what we are meant to experience on this night. It is in looking at the cross of Christ that are eyes are opened to the enormity of our sin. The cross of Christ reveals that only the death of the pure and holy Christ of God could atone for the iniquity of us all. Only when we see how great a price was paid for our salvation do we understand just how horrendous is our sin.
Dr. Frank Harrington was until his recent death the senior minister of the Peachtree Presbyterian Church in Atlanta, Georgia. Every Lent he and his wife arranged to have a massive cross planted on the front lawn of the church to catch the attention of passersby. The cross is furled in purple until Easter Sunday, when the Harringtons arrange with a florist to have the giant cross festooned in flowers of every color and hue.
Once, a new city bus driver was guiding his bus down the street by the church. He wasn't familiar with the church's tradition of its Lenten cross on the lawn. It was in the middle of a conversation when he suddenly saw the huge cross. At that moment he interrupted what he had been saying and shouted out, ''My God, somebody BIG must have died.'' [1]
He was thinking of those little crosses we see on roadsides that people put up when someone they love has been killed. Good Friday is when we remember that somebody big did die for you and for me - the Son of God. Only someone that big could save us from the sin that has separated us from God.
And yet, we are not meant, to be left feeling only sorrow and grief. This is not only a night of sadness, but gratitude and e ...
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