Today is Good Friday; a day set aside to remind us of Jesus’ suffering and death.  Jesus was betrayed, mocked, scourged, humiliated, beaten, and heinously killed.

This is the first Good Friday where I am now truly acquainted with suffering.  I watched my son suffer, and we, in turn, suffered.  I watched Jud die a wretched death, and it has brought unspeakable brokenness.  But I did not choose it.  I could not choose it.  I begged for mercy and deliverance from it.

God chose. 

God chose to send His Son to suffer and die.  He watched Jesus get beaten, mocked, scourged, and humiliated.  He watched His Beloved die a horrific death.

He chose it.  Why?

He chose it out of His deep love for us, for me.  God chose to send Jesus to earth, to conquer death, that we might experience life in eternity with Him.  But to do so, He had to watch His own Son suffer and die.  Yes, He could have intervened, and He must have experienced incomprehensible brokenness, but He knew the sacrifice was necessary for all His other beloved, including me, to live.

I cannot fathom this choice.  But it is because of His choice, the sacrifice of His only Son, that in three days, death was swallowed up in victory…