Feeling alone on Good Friday

Today is Good Friday, the day when we remember Jesus' death on the cross. 

Picture credit: www.LumoProject.com

Normally, churches throughout the country would be holding special services, as Christians come together to reflect, often in moments of quiet, on the horrors of the cross, and to thank God for his great love for us.

The cross wasn't an unexpected consequence or accident that prematurely cut short Jesus' life. The cross was always at the heart of God's rescue plan for the world. Right from the very first pages of the Bible story, God's plan to repair the damage done by human sin involved Jesus' death on the cross.

But this Good Friday we won't be coming together physically to reflect and remember. Instead, we're experiencing this Good Friday through social distancing and self-isolation. And many of us will be finding that hard.

On Good Friday, as Jesus died on the cross, he spoke some words from Psalm 22, 'my God, my God, why have you forsaken me?'

Jesus had been betrayed, denied and abandoned by his friends. And now, somehow, as he took our sin, he is experiencing something he has not known before - separation from God the Father.

So Jesus knows what it is like to be alone. But Jesus experienced this separation in order that we might draw near to God. So that the separation between us and God, caused by sin, might be put right.

So as we live through this Good Friday - many of us on our own - let's thank God that because of the cross we can know God with us, even in our isolation.

Here is a reflection put together by the Bible Society for this Good Friday.