The Worst Thing Is Never The Last Thing
By Zach Chronley
Good Friday is the forever reminder that God is working in the midst of the worst things imaginable. Not one of us, if we had been present on the Good Friday, the day Jesus was betrayed, beaten, slandered, scourged, mocked, and unjustly died an excruciating death would have called the day good, but God was working under the surface. We celebrate because, He was using the worst thing to lead to the best thing: life with him.
In sending his son to die, God was showing that he cared enough to handle the messiest, most complicated, and hidden issue in your life. Your sin. One of the better operating definitions of love I’ve come across is this: “Love is incredible care in the intimate details.” Isn’t it true that when you love someone you start almost inexplicably begin to care about the smallest details of their life? The trivial facts about them cease to be trivial. A casual glance at a Facebook profile could tell you a lot of biographic facts about someone. But it’s the people you love, that you know the most obscure or even sometimes embarrassingly personal things. God knows more intimately about your sins and failures than anyone. He loves you enough to see your sins, but also gives us the gift to cleanse us from our sins, even at great personal cost.
When evaluating any gift, a personalized item that required intimate knowledge is always the most treasured. In my closet is a box filled with every handwritten letter I’ve ever received. It doesn’t matter who sent them or how I now feel about the writer, I hold on to the letters still because there is intrinsic value in handwritten words. I’ve received a fair share of incredibly thoughtful and kind text messages throughout the years that I’ve made no effort to save or recall. What makes the letters different? There is a certain je ne sais quoi involved in letter writing. Simply because we live in an era where letter writing is a dying art that requires an intentional level of additional care and effort creates value in simple words.
God is the ultimate example of showing incredible effort in the intricate ways he loves us. The scars on Jesus’s palms and sides are the handwritten love letter to us. God will go to extravagant lengths to give you the greatest thing imaginable, abundant life in him. God gives us the right gifts at the right time. Grace when needed. Patience when ours is running short. Even wisdom is we should ask him. Another way to judge a gift is the value or cost involved, and truly, Jesus paid a costly price to save you from your sins. The wages of sin is death, and Jesus paid that and more in order to give us life. Each beating, every painful moment endured in order to pay the red in our ledger.
The terrible things we experience should not be overly simplified into teachable moments. Yes, there is always room to learn more, but ultimately God’s aim isn’t information but formation; being formed more and more into the image of our Savior. Christ’s death shatters our conception of simply living a better life but living a cruciform life. One surrendered to the will of the father. A life that trusts in God’s goodness, even when it hurts. We battle being conformed to the lifeless routine pattern of this world by being transformed by the renewal of our minds each and every day. To quote Annie Dillard, “how we spend our days is of course how we spend our lives.” A life with God starts with a day with God which starts with this day spent with God. The same Jesus that was buried in the tomb is the same Jesus who was baptized in the Jordan. Those baptized into Christ’s family are united in his death.
In the Kingdom of God, there are no throw-away days. This is the day the Lord has made, yes even this ordinary or painful one. His mercies are new each morning. And we emerge out of a dead sleep into the new life that we were raised to walk in. Our every waking effectively separates us from the sins and shortcomings of yesterday. We surface from the abyss with blurry eyes and are brought into a new day with nothing yet achieved, no righteousness we can claim for our own, and the Father looks down on us and says “this is my child in whom I am well pleased.” If we are in Christ nothing will ever separate us from those words. Let’s take hold of the promised Joy that comes in the morning and abides with our beloved. Abide, for in His presence is fullness of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.
On the darkest of Fridays, God has begun the work that will lead to the greatest of all days. If you are hurting, speak to him as a loving father. God invites us to speak intimately with Him. We are to have a real loving relationship with him. In fact, it’s a commandment. We’re commanded to love God. Speak to God as you would a friend, a good father, and King. He is all those things. Eugene Peterson wrote, “The central and shaping language of the church's (and the Christian's) life has always been its prayer language.” When you pray this way it changes you; shapes you more into the person of Christ. Draws you to Him.
If you are going through the worst day or season you have ever experienced, just know, Good Friday is the forever reminder that God is working in the midst of the worst things imaginable. Trust the process. The worst thing is never the last thing. God can spring something good out of whatever it is you are experiencing. If he could turn crucifixion Friday into Good Friday, he can do this and more if you let him. The resurrection is coming! Hope is coming!
Join us at The Well Community Church this Friday at 7 pm at Northeast Baptist Church, 2930 MacArthur View, San Antonio, TX 78217, as we remember the hope we have in our suffering.