Forgiveness on Good Friday

I've been thinking and praying about what to post for this special Easter week and though I've started several posts, none of them have come together.  When I read this devotional by our son, Chuck,

Dr. Chuck L. Betters (Son!)

I was moved to carefully consider his challenge and sensed this was the message someone who reads my blog might also need on this very holy day.  Easter is a profound moment for me.  Husband Chuck met Jesus on Easter.  Seven-year-old son, Daniel, realized his need for Jesus on Palm Sunday and then convinced his little brother, Mark, that he, too, needed to ask Jesus into his heart.  Perhaps the most profound message of Easter is that each of us can experience freedom when we not only experience forgiveness but extend it.  This message by son Chuck is not an easy one to absorb but I challenge you to read carefully and prayerfully consider the implications of what he expresses.  Chuck wears many hats and for this devotional he is wearing his hat of Headmaster of Red Lion Christian Academy in Bear, Delaware.

Good Friday Forgiveness
A Devotional

Dr. Chuck L. Betters, Headmaster

Red Lion Christian Academy

When a person is redeemed, they are released from bondage or penalty by the payment of a ransom price. It is at the cross, on Good Friday, that Christ does his redeeming work for us. Condemned criminals, prisoners of war, and slaves are freed through his redeeming work. On Good Friday, Christ gave himself as a ransom for us (I Tim. 2:6). We are bought at a price (I Cor. 6:20). The price tag of forgiveness is costly. The redemption at the cross was costly—Christ became sin so that we may be justified. 

So many times in life we are deeply hurt by the people closest to us--a spouse, a parent, a best friend, a co-worker, or a child. With genuine forgiveness, the person who was hurt actually absorbs the wrong and prevents it from spreading and multiplying. When you truly forgive someone, you bear the brunt of their wrongdoing. Christ did this for us when he nailed the sinner’s certificate of indebtedness to the cross and disarmed the rulers and authorities by making a public spectacle of them. Christ redeemed us from the curse of the Law by becoming a curse for us. There is an interesting verse all the way back in Deuteronomy 21:23 that says: “for it is written, cursed is everyone who is hung on a tree.” We have no clue how humiliating the cross was for Christ Jesus--he really did become a curse. He absorbed our wrongs and died for the accursed (Gal. 3:13). 

When you forgive, the wounds will start to close up and will begin to heal. Depending on the sin, it may take a very long time. If you do not forgive the other person, you will carry around this pain, as an open wound, for the rest of your life. Many times, the person who offended us does not even ask for forgiveness or believe they were wrong in their actions. Still, we are confronted with the decision: to forgive or not to forgive. 

I had major back surgery a few years ago. They cut me through the stomach, moved my insides around, fused the vertebrae, and closed me up. It has taken years to heal: if I ever fully heal. My body reacted against the trauma by throwing multiple life-threatening blood clots to my lungs. In other words, the process of recovering from the original wound almost killed me even though I was doing everything I could for my body to heal. 

It may almost kill you to forgive another person, and in fact, a part of you may have already died.

For some, it may feel like it is too much to bear to forgive another. Even after you forgive, the process of healing will be difficult. Here is the beautiful part: Christ raises the dead. In fact, it is through dying that we truly live. It is through "lost-ness" that we become found (Luke 15). 

You may have been spiritually, emotionally, and even physically cut and wounded by another. The question is: will you forgive the other so those wounds can start to heal? When you don’t forgive, that original wound remains open. What happens to open wounds? They become infected, they become a blemish, they are obvious to everyone around you, and the sickness may spread to the rest of your body. Perhaps there is someone from your deep past whom you need to forgive.

Good Friday is the day for that wound to be closed up so the healing process can begin. Who is hurt more? The person who did the cutting, or the one who was cut and never really healed? It bears repeating: forgiving another means that you assume, and bear the burden of the results of that person's sin. Like the cross at Calvary, forgiveness is very messy.

It may not be fair that the "ball is in your court" and that you are being asked to forgive another who has deeply hurt you and may not even be seeking your forgiveness. I know this will sound cliche'-ish: but it wasn't fair that Christ took our sins, our punishment, in his body, on the tree (II Peter 2: 24). When you forgive someone, you are standing in the gap for that person. You are becoming a Christ-type in their lives. In a small way, you are anguishing in the Garden of Gethsemane for that person, you are standing in their place in the judgment hall, and you are carrying their cross up the hill to Calvary. When Christ forgives us, somehow, someway, he forgets the offense. It is as if we had never sinned. Then when God views us, we are justified freely (Romans 3: 23-28). He became sin for us so that we could become the righteousness of God (II Cor. 5: 21). 

There is a classic hymn that was composed for Holy Thursday. Hum your most soulful and mournful best to the tune most known for "Rock of Ages" and worship with me through these powerful words that take us on the journey from Holy Thursday to Easter Sunday:

Go to dark Gethsemane

ye that feel the tempter's power; 

your Redeemer's conflict see, 

watch with him one bitter hour. 

Turn not from his griefs away; 

learn of Jesus Christ to pray. 

See him at the judgment hall, 

beaten, bound, reviled, arraigned; 

O the wormwood and the gall! 

O the pangs his soul sustained! 

Shun not suffering, shame, or loss; 

learn of Christ to bear the cross. 

Calvary's mournful mountain climb; 

there, adoring at his feet, 

mark that miracle of time, 

God's own sacrifice complete. 

"It is finished!" hear him cry; 

learn of Jesus Christ to die. 

Early hasten to the tomb 

where they laid his breathless clay; 

all is solitude and gloom. 

Who has taken him away? 

Christ is risen! He meets our eyes; 

Savior, teach us so to rise.

When I consider the journey Jesus took to forgive me as theologically expressed throughout the Scriptures and artistically penned in this old hymn...how could I not forgive others? 

On this Good Friday who do you need to rise up and forgive?


May we seek out a way to honor the ultimate forgiveness we have experienced through the ultimate price of the blood of our precious Savior, Jesus. Join with other believers at a Good Friday service tonight and ponder this supernatural gift.

In His grip,


Sharon