Daily Devotional

Good Friday is called “Good” because of the day’s connection to Easter. Certainly, the actual day of Jesus’ death did not feel “good” to any of His family or friends. But then, on Sunday morning, resurrection redefined His death. Since then, every Holy Week Friday has been called “Good Friday” because it occurs after the Resurrection of Christ. The Good Friday worship service is a solemn remembrance of the Crucifixion done in the knowledge that death is the precursor of the Resurrection.

The Bible, if you will, is a love story. It’s roughly 840,000 words that tell us how special we are to God. Everything’s going well in the beginning. God has created the heavens and earth, and His favorite part of the day is spent with Adam and Eve in the garden. But, by the end of the third chapter, only 2,100 words in, they have sinned and been separated from God’s presence.

As Jesus was hanging from the cross, there were several statements the gospel writers record Him saying. We often refer to these statements as “The Seven Last Words.” They include statements like the one above in Luke 23: Today you will be with me in paradise.

The season of Lent is a special time in the life of the church. It mirrors the time that Jesus spent in the wilderness. In the gospel of Matthew, Jesus is led by the Spirit into the wilderness. There, Jesus spent forty days and nights fasting and praying. At the end of this time, he faces three temptations. This is where it is recorded that Jesus says, It is written: “Man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.” (Matthew 4:4)

And as he rode along, they spread their garments on the road. As he was now drawing near, at the descent of the Mount of Olives, the whole multitude of the disciples began to rejoice and praise God with a loud voice for all the mighty works that they had seen, saying,

And when he had said this, he went on ahead, going up to Jerusalem. When he drew near to Bethphage and Bethany, at the mount that is called Olivet, he sent two of the disciples, saying, “Go into the village opposite, where on entering you will find a colt tied, on which no one has ever yet sat; untie it and bring it here. If any one asks you, ‘Why are you untying it?’ you shall say this, ‘The Lord has need of it.’”

When I was going into middle school, everyone was reading the Percy Jackson series. For those of you who haven’t heard of it, the series is essentially the Greek epics of Homer and Hesiod retold for a pre-teen audience. They did incredibly well. Over 180 million copies were sold,

There is a power in the cross that we can’t totally understand. Certainly, there is love in the cross, forgiveness, hope, and a promise that love is bigger than evil and greater than the worst thing we can imagine. But there’s something else about the cross.

Several images may come to mind when we think about the Christian faith. You may envision a cross, ichthys (Christian fish), a dove, or a triquetra. As for me, the image of a cross is the first that comes to my mind.

When I was a freshman at OCU, I was doing my best to navigate conversations and egos surrounding my early success and whether my race had anything to do with that. I was sensitive about racial topics, and even more so after another student attended an event in black face. I was lucky to be in a school near my family, and sensing I needed support, my mom started to come to campus once a week to have lunch with me. One day, another student commented,