Why Christians commemorate Good Friday

Can you imagine watching someone you love being beaten?  What if you had no power over stopping it?  What might that feel like?  Torment…anguish…brokenness?  Perhaps these were the emotions of Mary and the followers of Jesus when they watched their beloved being crucified.

On that fateful Good Friday over 2000 years ago, Jesus Christ was whipped, beaten, pierced and nailed to the cross.  All around the world believers remember this holy day.  It was on Good Friday that the Son of God died.

Christians believe Jesus was put to his death in order to save humanity for their sins.  The Messiah who came to save the world was prophesied long before Jesus died on the cross.  The Old Testament tells that a Messiah would come.  In Isaiah 53, it is written, “He was pierced for our rebellion, crushed for our sins. He was beaten so we could be whole. He was whipped so we could be healed. All of us, like sheep, have strayed away. We have left God’s paths to follow our own. Yet the Lord laid on him the sins of us all.”

In this article by theologians they state, “The Old Testament most definitely prophesies the coming of Jesus as the Messiah. There are “seventy sevens” prophecy in Daniel chapter 9 which predict the precise date that Jesus, the Messiah, would be “cut off.” And Isaiah 50:6 accurately describes the beating that Jesus endured. Along with many other examples of the coming Messiah in the Old Testament, Zechariah 12:10 predicts the “piercing” of the Messiah, which occurred after Jesus died on the cross.

Why do Christians believe that a man dying on a cross would save them from their sins? Christians know they are sinners. The sin which lives inside every person, whether they believe or not, is never going to be made right without a loving God whom forgives.

Many people will acknowledge Jesus Christ as a good man, a great teacher, or even a prophet of God. These things are definitely true of Jesus, but they do not fully define who He truly is. The Bible states that Jesus is God in the flesh, God in human form. God came to earth to teach us, heal us, correct us, forgive us—and die for us! Jesus Christ is God, the Creator, and the sovereign Lord.

Not only does the Bible instruct us to take up our own cross and follow Him but to believe in who Jesus is, the living Messiah who was pierced for our transgressions.  This may be the day Christians realize they are sinners, but they acknowledge, Sunday is coming!