Our Lord Jesus Christ had died for us, and we commemorate this fact on Good Friday every year. Why did He choose to die? and why did He choose to suffer? Surely God has His ways to rescue us from our sins without having Christ suffer humiliation, mockery, and death? Surely He can just cleanse us from our sins through another way?

No, this is not simply the case. When Adam and Eve, our forefathers, sinned by disobeying God in the Garden of Eden, by obeying Satan and his wish that they eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil. they were tainted by the taint of evil and sin. Because of this, they were banished from the presence of the Lord, just as Satan was banished due to his pride and sin that originated in his heart. Because the Lord is so holy and perfect that no one who has sinned can stand in front of God, in His presence and live.

Therefore, there is a need to rescue mankind, who was created by God in His own image, and brought to life by His own Spirit in the breath of life. God said to Moses that, in order to alleviate one’s sins, in the Book of Leviticus, He prescribed the burnt offering of the lambs and goats, which were offered by the appointed Levite priests, who offered them to the Lord, and in this offering, the temporal sins that the people have, were cleansed. But yet, this kind of offering is not worthy enough to completely redeem us from our death and sin.

That is because the blood of these lambs and goats are mere mortal bloods insufficient as the payment for our rebellions and our sins. Only Blood worthy enough, that is the Blood of the Lamb of God, that is worthy for the forgiveness and the cleansing of all the sins of all mankind, once and for all. This blood sacrifice also reestablished the bonds that mankind had with God, lost when our forefathers disobeyed God and listened to Satan and his temptations instead.

The Blood of the Lamb is the Precious Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, which He freely poured down for us, just as the blood flowed down from the cross, and from his wounds. All of these wounds represent the reparations that Christ had paid for our sins and our faults. That through this holy and the only worthy blood, our defects that made us unworthy before God can be removed.

He washed us who believe in Him in His Blood, that we can once again be pure and as white as snow, just as said in the Psalm, but if we are truly repentant on our sins and sincerely seek the Lord and ask for His most gracious mercy.

Why today is called Good Friday? Because it is indeed a good day! We have to remember to put our faith constantly focused on the events that we commemorate on this day. For we are not Christians if we do not base ourselves on Christ, and we are not Christians if we do not believe in Christ who is not only glorified by God, but also was crucified on the cross, and who died a criminal’s death though He was sinless and faultless, all so that we ourselves can be freed from our sins, and have hope of a new life through Christ, who made all of this possible, hence today is a good day indeed.

He is the only one worthy of redeeming us from our faults, and out of His perfect and pure love for all of us, even for those who hated and rejected Him, He came to all of us, in our own mortal form, that through His mortality, and His life on this world, He could bring forth the full completion of the works of salvation God had begun with the prophets and since the days of Moses when He brought Israel out of Egypt, and even since the beginning of time.

Christ brought forth the commandments of love, that we are to love one another, just as He had loved us. He brought forth the perfect example of His own commandments, by laying down His life for all His friends, that is all of us. He humbled Himself and died on the cross, to die in humiliation that all of us can be glorified in Him, just as He was glorified in the glorious Resurrection, when God and mankind both triumphed in the ultimate struggle against evil, who first brought forth sin and taint on the first mankind.

Therefore, brothers and sisters in Christ, today let us reflect, and reflect deeply on the humility that Christ had assumed, and in His great obedience to obey the will of His Father, that through His sacrifice, as the Lamb of God, brought without struggle to the slaughter that is the cross, and through the shedding of His Precious Blood, and the parting of His Precious Body, He had given salvation and life freely to us, if only we accept His precious gifts.

Therefore, let us pray that on this holy day, when Christ died for us, when He broke the chains of death and sin from us, that we can grow to love Him more and more, and be more and more courageous for the sake of our Lord crucified, and to continue preaching the good news on the Christ who was crucified but then was resurrected in triumph against sin and the evil one. When hope seemed lost, He turned a new chapter in life, through His resurrection.

Let us pray for one another, that the faith within us, will remain forever strong, and we will be able to carry our own crosses, alongside the cross of our Lord, Jesus Christ, Son of God. Amen!