Here are a few things to reflect upon this Good Friday. The cross of Christ and the empty tomb should not be considered independent of one another. In the cross of Christ and the Resurrection we find a God who truly knows the extent of our sufferings, who redeems us from the pit of our sins and makes us new, now and forever more.

“In the cross of his Son, God took upon himself not only death, so that man might be able to die comforted with the certainty that even death could not separate him from God, but still more, in order to make the crucified Christ the ground of his new creation, in which death itself is swallowed up in the victory of life and there will be ‘no sorrow, no crying, and no more tears’.” (The Crucified God by J. Moltmann)

Finally, please take a moment to listen to the song, "To a Broken God" by Michael Card.  The lyrics are below.  Have a Good Friday.

Didn’t see you there, didn’t know you were weeping too;
I think of tears as a human wound.
Though of course you care, you have shown you were human too;
They say you cried at Lazarus’ tomb.

I was unaware how it is with a broken God;
I thought of you as above my pain.
Lost in my despair, so it is with a broken heart;
I never dreamed you could feel the same.

Once…,
In a magazine I saw a face,
Wrinkled up in grief and travailed grace.
I kept looking to that face,
Some sad refugee in some sad place;
And in his eyes the sorrow of our race.
And then I saw, it was the face of God,
the face of God, your face dear God.

Some say you’re not there, just a myth for a lazy life;
An artifact from an ancient scroll.
But I have known you near in the gift of a weary sigh;
Lord of the lost and the lonesome soul.

I was unaware how it is with a broken God;
I never dreamed you could feel the same.