Holy Week | Good Friday

Apr 18, 2014 | Upper School News

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During the week before Easter many Christian faiths remember the journey to the cross. This year the Spiritual Life Committee at the Upper School wanted to do something special for our entire Mount Vernon community. Monday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday our students will be posting to this blog a simple devotional and a song produced by our very own praise band. We hope you enjoy the love found in these words.

Good Friday

By Kate Weathers and Meg Buchanan
He suffered the agony as nails were driven through His feet and the palms of His hands. The crown of thorns He wore that day didn’t rest upon His head in magnificent splendor, but instead painfully pierced His brow. Good Friday is the day Jesus Christ humbly laid down His life on the cross to pay for our sins so that we could be freed from the curse and power of sin and shame.
On this day, we remember that it wasn’t just a cross of wood He carried on his shoulder, but it was our sins.
The cross is the means by which Jesus rescued us from death. β€œHe himself bore our sins” in his body on the cross, so that we might die to sin and live for righteousness; β€œby his wounds you have been healed.” (1 Peter 2:24) It is as if we were on the cross, receiving the curse that our sins deserved. But He did it for us, and because He did it, we can be justified and proclaimed as righteous.
Good Friday is good because…
Jesus tasted death that I may never taste it.
Jesus died that I may live.
Jesus wore the crown of thorns that I might wear the crown of life.
Jesus was showered with judgement he did not deserve that I might be showered with the grace that I do not deserve.
We receive divine forgiveness, mercy, and peace because Jesus willingly took our divine punishment, the result of God’s righteousness against sin. β€œLooking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.” (Hebrews 12:2)
Today, take a few moments to remember and thank Jesus for the love He lavished on you that first Good Friday. Because He lives, that love and forgiveness are still available for those who have yet to receive His free gift of salvation.
Good Friday says we cannot save ourselves. Without Christ’s selfless act, without His choosing to give His life, we would not be living grace.
CLICK HEREΒ to listen to Jesus Paid It All as performed by the Upper School Praise Band. Right click the player and select ‘Save As’ to save the file.