Good Friday

He died for me.

Wow.

You know, we can never, ever really *get* what this means. We get glimpses--we know "where we were" when He found us. Desperate situation, that. No hope for *anything.* Now we "have it all"--all that He came here to do, all that He provides, on earth and heaven, too. It is wonderful, glorious!

I've heard Good Friday meditations on what it must have meant for Jesus to be completely alone on the cross. How His Father had to turn away, He who could have no part of sin. Jesus, who had never, from eternity, been separated from His Father. Complete, beautiful fellowship broken. Something I will never experience--His promise is that He "will never leave me or forsake me." In all the deepest, darkest moments of my life, He is there to comfort. The fact that He had to go through His deepest, darkest moment (deeper, darker than any I will ever face) completely alone makes me feel Shame.

Then there is the view from the other side. How hard it must have been for the Father to sacrifice His Son. Just as difficult for Him to be separated from Jesus, to have him go through it all alone. A double whammy.

Methinks we take this thing waaay too lightly. Day to day, I confess sin and count on "He is faithful and just to forgive, and to cleanse from all unrighteousness." Day to day, I don't think about how much it Cost Him.

We always talk about the Resurrection--the Victory over sin and death. It seems that only one day out of the year do we talk about the Battle. I think that the Battle turned at Gethsemane--when Jesus came to the place where He could say, "not My will, but Thine be done."

How far I have to go, even in the paltry things my Father asks of me.

How grateful I am, that He never gives up on me. The work on the cross was worth far too much for Him to give up. His will for me is to "be conformed to the image of His Son."

Much work to do here.