Thursday, April 21, 2011

The Blackest Thursday

Today is Black Thursday, or at least it is the day we remember one Black Thursday nearly two thousand years ago. It was on this day that Jesus hung on the cross and died for the sins of the world. As he died, the sky became black and the veil in the temple was rent from top to bottom, forever opening the door for us to communicated directly with God. Of all the Black Thursdays that have ever been, there has never been a Thursday more black than the Thursday that Jesus died. And yet, as we look back on the blackness of that Thursday, we see the brightest light of all piercing the darkness.

Three days and three nights, the Bible tells us, Jesus lay in the heart of the earth, buried in a tomb hewn from the hard rock of earth itself, covered with a large stone and guarded by armed soldiers. Thursday, Thursday night, Friday, Friday night, Saturday, Saturday night, and then came Sunday. Jesus, the one true Passover lamb paid our debt, protected us from the angel of death, and the he rose from the dead, showing us our hope for life eternal.

Without that Black Thursday, when Jesus died, there wouldn’t be an Easter Sunday worth celebrating. If it weren’t for that Black Thursday, we might as well spend Easter Sunday chasing the Easter Bunny out of our lettuce patch. You see, God is holy and we are not. A holy God cannot dwell with anything unholy and we who are unholy cannot dwell with anything that is. A sacrifice was necessary for us to gain the righteousness we needed to dwell with God. Jesus is that sacrifice. He lay down his life on that Black Thursday so long ago and then he took it up again. The impossible became possible.

So as we go through our day, perhaps going about our business as usual, let’s take some time to think about what Jesus did for us on that Black Thursday so long ago.