It's Still Friday

Death has been omnipresent in my life lately. Death is always present whether we know it or not, of course, but it's been in my face the past few weeks. I've lost one friend. I have another hanging on by a thread. My own body has been giving out in ways that shouldn't happen for at least another twenty years. Mortality overshadows my waking hours more than usual, almost as though someone has turned up the gravity.

It's no wonder I'm feeling so trampled on this particular day. It's still only Friday.

That's a reference to the sermon by S. M. Lockridge, "It's Friday, But Sunday's Coming." It's a strange thing, when you think about it, that we call today Good in any sense of the word. Our Lord has been killed, our brothers and sisters have scattered, we hide in fear and confusion, and nothing makes sense. Our hope is dashed. Our faith shaken. And death, it seems, is the last man standing.

Today is Good Friday, the worst day of the year...if Sunday doesn't come. Today death has overpowered a God, even the Author of the universe, who took on the limitations of a mortal body...if Sunday doesn't come. Today the few untested followers of a troublesome man disappear back into the woodwork, today his name is lost to the footnotes of history, today a promise seems broken, today evil triumphs.

But Sunday's coming.

We call today Good because we know that it marks the end of the end, the last time death gets the upper hand. Jesus surrendered himself to death as only a man could - as all men must - but then turned around and conquered it completely, once and for all. If it wasn't for this Friday, Sunday would mean nothing. Instead, nothing means anything without Sunday.

We’re in a Friday world. It’s a world filled with confusion and unanswered questions, a day when bad things happen to good people, our bodies fail us, and death seems all too inevitable. It’s been a very long Friday indeed.

But, praise God! We’ve got a calendar.

It won’t be Friday forever, and we know what’s going to happen when Sunday comes.


Get ready, everyone. Sunday's coming!