Today, we remember Good Friday. Do you sometimes feel as if your life is lived in a perpetual Good Friday mode? Like the movie, Groundhog Day, it seems you are replaying the same bad day over and over, fighting despair and struggling. Disease, broken relationships, prodigal children…the landscape looks bleak and can easily lead to despair.

Good Friday reminds us that all our suffering and struggles will one day end. One day there will be no more tears, no death, no mourning or pain. All things will be made new.

The reason Good Friday is good is because Jesus willingly (He could have called His angels to rescue Him, remember?) sacrificed and suffered for us. There was a purpose in Christ’s suffering. He knew that purpose and was obedient, even unto death. He took our sin to the cross so that we could be saved. Without His sacrifice, we could not be justified to God.

On that day, it looked like evil won, but Easter reminds us that this is not true. Jesus triumphed over the grave. Death could not keep Him and He rose again!

Easter is about hope. No matter how bleak Good Friday seems, Easter reminds us that one day disease will be erased, wrongs will be righted, and brokenness will be healed.

We are created to hope in Him and long for that day when suffering is no more.

Psalm 39:7 reminds us, “My hope is in Him,” not circumstances or people. Psalm 119:147 says, “I rise before dawn and cry for help; I have put my hope in your word.”

On Good Friday, we cry for help, but remember Christ is risen! Our living God is our constant source of hope. He defeated the darkness.

This Easter season choose hope. Refuse to give in to despair. “Love never gives us, never loses faith is always HOPEFUL, and endures every circumstance” (1 Corinthians 13:7).

He is Risen! He is risen indeed!

HAPPY EASTER …a few days early!