I’m thinking about this day that we call Good Friday, the Friday before Easter.

Good Friday is the anniversary of the day that Jesus was executed by being nailed to a big wooden cross and hanging there until he died. This form of execution, called crucifixion, was the ancient world’s most brutal, painful, and humiliating form of the death penalty. And on this day not quite 2,000 years ago, it was done to Jesus.

But Jesus was the last person on earth who deserved to die like that.

He was amazing. Everything about Him was amazing. He was the Son of God come from Heaven to save us from our sins. He said things that no one had ever said before and performed miracles that defied the laws of nature, physics, and medicine. He was kind and loving and caring to people who nobody else in the world cared about. And He was challenging and even threatening to people who nobody else in the world dared to challenge. In a nutshell, He was perfect.

So if this form of execution they called crucifixion was so terrible, and this Savior we call Jesus was so wonderful, why do we call the anniversary of the day that Jesus was crucified “Good” Friday?

The short answer to that question is because it was good for us. Good Friday is the anniversary of what is arguably the most important day in human history. On this day, when Jesus died, He died as a sacrifice for our sins. In His death, the punishment that we all deserve for all the ways that we have rejected God and gone our own way, is paid for. Because of Jesus’ death on the cross, all that stuff that separates people from God doesn’t have to be there anymore.  It can be forgiven. That is good news! And that is why we call the Friday before Easter Good Friday.

Good Friday says some amazing things about Jesus— it says that He has the power and authority to die as a sacrifice for our sins, and the love and compassion and courage to actually do it. And Good Friday also says something about you. It says that at the worst of your worst, in the depth of your sinfulness, when Jesus looks at you He sees someone worth dying for.

Isn’t that amazing? We waste so much of our lives trying to invent a way to somehow be good enough for God. But from the beginning that is not how it works. God brings all the goodness to our salvation. All we bring is the need for it. And yet, at the worst of our worst, when Jesus looks at us He sees someone worth dying for.

As I think about how great of a gift that is, and how Jesus’ death has the power to bring us new life forever, there is a part of me that wants to wish you a happy Good Friday. But I just can’t do it. For me, Good Friday is far too emotionally complicated of a day to say that. So instead, I wish you a thoughtful Good Friday. I wish you a day in which you have the courage to remember that Jesus gave His life for you, and the humility to respond to that historical fact by choosing to give your life to Him.

Good Friday. What a day.