“This is my blood. Drink it in remembrance of me.”
Good Friday. It’s the day we celebrate someone being tortured to death. It’s an odd holiday, and it’s unfortunately over-looked.
In the Old Testament, God told the Israelites not to eat blood, not to touch death, that anyone hung on a tree was cursed. That everything the cross was, was ugly–but that’s where God found redemption, in the ugliness. Our redemption–and that’s why we celebrate.
I’ve always tried to find beauty in everything; from illness and thunder storms, to traffic noise and trash. I’ve tried to find redemption everywhere. I never quite understood why I did it, until I really thought about where Jesus found my redemption.
The cross was ugly, but it had to be, because human beings are ugly too. God redeemed them both. And that’s why we celebrate a night of blood and sweat, and pain and tears, and death. We celebrate God’s redemption, that is there through nights like that.