Good Friday is essential to Easter. We cannot rush through it. We must not rush through it. It is not easy. It is not fun to sit with and in our sin. We don’t like it. We don’t like that way because of the way that it makes us feel. But if we do not sit with and realize our sin, we cannot truly feel forgiven. Without Good Friday, without the cross, without this, we truly don’t realize or experience the joy, healing, and hope that is Easter. Sit with it today.

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Good Friday has always felt like a strange name for a day like this.

What’s “good” about betrayal, torture, abandonment, and death? What’s good about watching the Son of God—blameless, compassionate, and holy—mocked, humiliated, and crucified?

It’s good for us, sure. It’s good because this is the day our salvation was purchased. It’s good because this is the day our sins were carried. But for Him—for Jesus—there was nothing good about it.

Still, we call it Good Friday. Not because of what it cost Him, but because of what it gives us.

If you’ve never been to a Good Friday service, I urge you—go. Whether it’s in a sanctuary near you or streamed online, enter into the story. Tonight at St. Matthew’s, we’ll hold our Tenebrae service, a powerful, shadow-filled remembrance of the cross. It’s one of the most meaningful moments of the entire Christian year.

But here’s the truth: if we want Easter to mean something, we have to walk through this first.

We can’t rush to resurrection until we’ve lingered in the loss. The empty tomb is only miraculous because the cross was so devastating.

On Good Friday, we often read the Gospel accounts of the crucifixion or reflect on Jesus’ final words. But today, I want to sit with words written long before Jesus was born. Words that cut deep. Words from Isaiah 53—often called the “suffering servant” passage. You may know it well. Let it wash over you again:

“Surely he has borne our infirmities and carried our diseases;
yet we accounted him stricken, struck down by God, and afflicted.
But he was wounded for our transgressions, crushed for our iniquities;
upon him was the punishment that made us whole,
and by his bruises we are healed.
All we like sheep have gone astray;
we have all turned to our own way,
and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.”
—Isaiah 53:4–6

These are some of the most hauntingly beautiful words in all of Scripture.

This is not poetic exaggeration. This is the cost of our sin. This is the cost of my selfishness. My pride. My failure to love. Your failures too. Not just the things we’ve done, but the things we’ve failed to do.

He didn’t just die for us.
He died because of us.

Let’s be honest. Most of us don’t want to sit with this for long.

We fill our lives with distractions—scrolling, noise, busyness—not just because the world demands it, but because it keeps us from having to think too much. If we slow down, we might come face-to-face with our guilt. And that’s terrifying.

We tell ourselves we’re “not that bad.” We find someone worse and say, “Well, at least I’m not them.” We try to outrun grace by acting like we don’t need it.

But here’s the truth: until we sit in the weight of our own brokenness, we’ll never feel the full freedom of forgiveness.

There’s a line from Brennan Manning’s The Ragamuffin Gospel that says:

“Very few of us really believe we are sinners. That’s why we don’t really believe we are forgiven.”

We’re not just people who sometimes make mistakes. We are people in need of mercy—deep, costly, undeserved mercy. And until we’re honest about that, grace won’t feel like a gift. It’ll just feel like a religious word.

Good Friday reminds me that I’m better than no one.

I don’t get to stand in judgment. I don’t get to feel superior. The ground at the foot of the cross is level—and I’m standing on it too. My sin was enough to nail Jesus to that tree.

And yet… He still went.

“Yet it was the will of the Lord to crush him with pain…
Through him, the will of the Lord shall prosper.” (Isaiah 53:10)

Why? Because love doesn’t run. Because love bears the cost. Because love lays down its life, even when we don’t understand why.

We want to skip ahead. We want to jump to the hallelujahs. But not yet.

Stay here. Sit in it. Feel it.

Let the silence speak. Let the sorrow rest heavy on your heart. Let the cross remind you just how deeply you are loved—not because you earned it, but because He chose to bear what we never could.

Good Friday is not a day to be cheerful. It’s a day to be honest. To be still. To let the truth settle in:

He died for you.
He died because of you.
And still, He loves you.

That’s what makes it Good.