3.30.2018

Emotions of Easter: Anger on Good Friday





Part 4 of 5 Emotions of Easter posts is the Anger of Good Friday
Part 3 on Thursday was Disgusting Feet
Part 2 on Tuesday was the Fear of the Pharisees
Part 1 on Sunday was the Joy of Palm Sunday.  This post also included an introduction to the Emotions of Easter posts.

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Today's emotion is anger.
Here is some context to help you understand why it is ANGER.

We have a clear advantage over those original disciples of Jesus Christ.
And Good Friday is the day that advantage became very obvious.

The First Good Friday was very different from every Good Friday since. 
We look back and remember and even celebrate Good Friday in the light of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ. 
But those original disciples did not know what was to come.  

Friday was very different for them.


The guards and the crowd had an anger that, to disciples of Jesus, seems so out of place considering who Jesus is.  

The mocking, spitting, cursing, and beating was so hate-filled. 
Followers of Jesus must have wondered why this was happening.

When I read the crucifixion accounts, the way so many different people so angrily treated my savior makes me angry.
And then I begin to remember that my rebellion against God, my sin and Jesus humble submission and obedience are why He died on that cross that first Good Friday.    john Stott wrote “Before we can begin to see the cross as something done for us, we have to see it as something done by us.”

HERE is a post by Tim Challies to help you reflect on this truth.


The Bible reading for today is one of the Crucifixion accounts.

Read the passage and think about what the followers of Jesus Christ might have been feeling and thinking on that first Good Friday.

Here are some quotes about Good Friday and the cross that are meant to help us prayerfully consider this amazing life changing day. 

“But far be it from me to boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.”  The Apostle Paul in Galatians 6:14 
"The only man who ever lived a life that was perfect in every way possible, who gave his life for the sacrifice of many, and who willingly suffered from birth to death in loyalty to his calling, was cruelly and publicly murdered in the most vicious of ways."   Paul Tripp 
“The cross is proof of both the immense love of God and the profound wickedness of sin.”  John MacArthur  
“At the cross, at the cross where I first saw the light, and the burden of my heart rolled away.  It was there by faith I received my sight, And now I am happy all the day!”  Isaac Watts, in hymn “At the Cross”  
“It was not nails that held Jesus to that wretched cross; it was his unqualified resolution, out of love for his Father, to do his Father’s will—and it was his love for sinners like me.”  D.A. Carson 
















Questions to ask:
  • What are some things that make you angry?
  • Why should the story of Jesus' crucifixion make you angry?
  • Why did Jesus have to die?
  • What is sin?
  • What did God do about our sin?
  • Why should that anger change to joy?
  • How can you have your sins forgiven?

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