Good Friday marks the death of all our pride and the dawning of all our hope.

God’s verdict on my life was rendered on the cross of Jesus Christ.  That should have been me hanging there.  It’s what I deserve when you compare the sinfulness of my life with the holiness of God.  Yes, the wages of sin are death. (Rm.6:23)  But have you ever stopped to think that the cross represents God’s verdict on our best of days as well?  Isaiah 64:6 humbles us all by saying, “We have all become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous deeds are like a polluted garment. We all fade like a leaf, and our iniquities, like the wind, take us away.”  Even our best days are like a filthy rag to God.  If all of that is true, pride is insanity.  Who am I to think I’m better than someone else?  Who are you to look down and judge others?  Who are we to pretend we’re good and others are bad?  We should have been on that cross and there’s no room for pride in that reality.

But we weren’t on that cross.  The only Innocent One in all of history was.  The Son of the Living God hung on that tree.  The One who created the world died in our place.  He suffered the weight of what should have been ours.  And we now live in the freedom of all that is His.  And that’s the dawning of our hope.  Jesus died so we don’t need to get what we deserve.  Jesus died to set us free from sin and death and to call us to a new life that will never end.

Jesus will never be beautiful to you until you believe that should have been you on the cross.  Until we see that we deserve what He got, we don’t understand the gospel.  But when we humble ourselves to admit our need, we receive His grace.  He didn’t go to the cross because you were worth it.  He went to the cross because He’s gracious, loving and unfolding a plan to glorify Himself that should take our breath away.

Look to that cross today.  It’ll humble you and it’ll fill you with hope.