I like to wear red on Good Friday to symbolize the blood that Jesus shed for me and the color of the love that fully paid the debt of my sins. On this Good Friday, as I was taking my dog out for her early morning walk, I came across a thorn tree and pondered on how a rose, such a beautiful, fragrant flower, can yield such piercing, painful thorns. As a believer that there are no co-incidences when it comes to God’s creation, I think it was to remind us that there is always something good in everything that we might consider to be bad.
When we reflect on the
pain Jesus had to endure when the crown of thorns was pressed and pierced into His
skill, so can imagine His red blood dripping down His face, and we can share in
His agony on this very dreadful ‘bad’ day. What makes this painful Friday ‘good’
is what Jesus’s death did for us. Were
it not for Jesus’s unselfish sacrifice, our relationship with God could not
have been restored. Jesus died to pay
the full price of our sins, to purchase our righteousness as a free gift of our
salvation.
The rose epitomizes that
fact that there is goodness amidst the bad. In life there are things we deem to
be pleasant (roses) but also the things we dislike and can harm us (thorns). I love it that God gave roses such a beautiful
scent, as a reminder to us that our pain produces a fragrance that will always turn
bad things into good.
So to go back to Good Friday, what makes that Friday good is to see that day through the lens of what Jesus’s death achieved for our good, and the love with with He did it with. Death was conquered on that day and through Jesus, our old nature can be crucified and put to death too.
