Scripture Sunday: Psalm 5:8-12

Lead me, O Lord, in your righteousness because of my enemies;
make your way straight before me. For there is no truth in their mouth;
their inmost self is destruction; their throat is an open grave;
they flatter with their tongue. Make them bear their guilt, O God;
let them fall by their own counsels;
because of the abundance of their transgressions cast them out,
for they have rebelled against you.
But let all who take refuge in you rejoice;
let them ever sing for joy,
and spread your protection over them,
that those who love your name may exult in you. For you bless the righteous, O Lord;
you cover him with favor as with a shield.

I pray that God will empower me to follow David’s example, to react to wickedness with a desire to draw closer to the Lord, rather than focus on revenge against those who wrong me. So often I am tempted to dwell on the ways various people have failed me, attacked me, or simply gotten in my way. But David has the better way in this Psalm—focus on God, on His deliverance and power. It is important to leave punishment to the Lord, and also to realize we are just as deserving of punishment as anyone else, but for the righteousness of Christ. I did not expect to see such a Jesus-like message in the Psalms, but I shouldn’t have been surprised! This is also a great reminder that our righteousness comes from faith in God, not from any innate goodness or works. We are to take refuge in the Lord, follow His leading, and rejoice in His love.

FINISHED!!!

As of about 12:30pm today (a record-breaking four hours before the deadline), I finished ALL of my coursework for my Master of Christian Education degree from Dallas Theological Seminary.

My brain is tired. My fingers are tired. It will take me years to process all that I have learned during my blessed three years at DTS.

So for now, I simply say, Hallelujah!!

Here I raise mine ebenezer;
hither by Thy help I'm come;
and I hope, by Thy good pleasure,
safely to arrive at home.
Jesus sought me when a stranger,
wandering from the fold of God;
He, to rescue me from danger,
interposed His precious blood.

O to grace how great a debtor
daily I'm constrained to be!
Let Thy goodness, like a fetter,
bind my wandering heart to Thee.
Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it,
prone to leave the God I love;
here's my heart, Lord, take and seal it,
seal it for Thy courts above.

Scripture Sunday: Grace Upon Grace

And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we saw His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth. John testified about Him and cried out, saying, “This was He of whom I said, ‘He who comes after me has a higher rank than I, for He existed before me.’” For of His fullness we have all received, and grace upon grace. For the Law was given through Moses; grace and truth were realized through Jesus Christ.

--John 1:14-17

Defined by Mercy

Read this.

A great post by a great Austin church trying to live as Jesus did.

"Go and do likewise." Luke 10:37

Ponder Anew

Praise to the Lord, the Almighty,

the King of creation!
O my soul, praise Him, for He is thy
health and salvation!
All ye who hear,
Now to His temple draw near;
Sing now in glad adoration!
Praise to the Lord, who o'er all
things so wondrously reigneth,
Who, as on wings of an eagle,
uplifteth, sustaineth.
Hast thou not seen
How thy desires all have been
Granted in what He ordaineth?
Praise to the Lord, who hath fearfully,
wondrously, made thee!
Health hath vouchsafed and, when
heedlessly falling, hath stayed thee.
What need or grief
Ever hath failed of relief?
Wings of His mercy did shade thee.
Praise to the Lord, who doth prosper
thy work and defend thee,
Who from the heavens the streams of
His mercy doth send thee.
Ponder anew
What the Almighty can do,
Who with His love doth befriend thee.
Praise to the Lord! Oh, let all that
is in me adore Him!
All that hath life and breath, come
now with praises before Him!
Let the Amen
Sound from His people again;
Gladly for aye we adore Him.

Hallelujah!!! (Psalm 145)

I just got word that something I have been dreaming of and planning for since I was 12 is finally happening. I can't even begin to describe my joy. Luckily, David and the Holy Spirit put together a little psalm a few thousand years ago that does a pretty good job. Hallelujah!!!

I will exalt You, my God the King;
I will praise Your name for ever and ever.
Every day I will praise You
and extol Your name for ever and ever.

Great is the LORD and most worthy of praise;
His greatness no one can fathom.
One generation commends Your works to another;
they tell of Your mighty acts.
They speak of the glorious splendor of Your majesty—
and I will meditate on Your wonderful works.
They tell of the power of Your awesome works—
and I will proclaim Your great deeds.
They celebrate Your abundant goodness
and joyfully sing of Your righteousness.

The LORD is gracious and compassionate,
slow to anger and rich in love.

The LORD is good to all;
He has compassion on all He has made.
All Your works praise You, LORD;
Your faithful people extol You.
They tell of the glory of Your kingdom
and speak of Your might,
so that all people may know of Your mighty acts
and the glorious splendor of Your kingdom.
Your kingdom is an everlasting kingdom,
and Your dominion endures through all generations.

The LORD is trustworthy in all He promises
and faithful in all He does.
The LORD upholds all who fall
and lifts up all who are bowed down.
The eyes of all look to You,
and You give them their food at the proper time.
You open Your hand
and satisfy the desires of every living thing.

The LORD is righteous in all His ways
and faithful in all He does.
The LORD is near to all who call on Him,
to all who call on Him in truth.
He fulfills the desires of those who fear Him;
He hears their cry and saves them.
The LORD watches over all who love Him,
but all the wicked He will destroy.

My mouth will speak in praise of the LORD.
Let every creature praise His holy name
for ever and ever.

Make Procrastination Work for You

In honor of tax day, and the fact that I am filing an extension to file yet again, I thought I would write a post about procrastination. =)

Procrastination is frustrating, both to the perpetrator and to the more organized, less-procrastination-prone people around him/her. Nobody enjoys procrastinating, but I would argue that most people do it, especially now that the internet is there with all of its lovely tempting time wasters.

Sometimes, however, procrastination can be helpful. I read an article a while ago by John Perry, a professor who has come up with a way to turn his habit of procrastinating into a way of actually getting more things done. He wrote an essay explaining it here. [And can we just pause to appreciate the way he avoided doing countless unwanted tasks by writing an article on making procrastination work for you? Genius.] His theory, to give it a brief overview, is that you will eventually get all the things on your list done as long as you are doing some of the things you need to do while procrastinating others. [You should read the essay; it's funny and explains this much better than I'm doing.]

Let me give you an example from today. I have a mountain of coursework to do for my final seminary class. ALL of it is due next Friday. There's a lot of it (possibly because I procrastinated some of it all semester and have to catch up now). Some of it is due tonight at midnight. So instead of working diligently on it all day and finishing early, I cleaned out my office (which was really just a room filled with piles of stuff as of this morning) and my garage (which hadn't been cleaned in about 5 years and is now freakishly pristine). If you had said to me, "On Monday, you must clean out your office," I wouldn't have done it. But because I had something looming that I wanted to do even less than I wanted to clean out my office, it got done (well, and I had some amazing help).

That's the idea behind Perry's structured procrastination. You continually pile things onto your "to do" list, and you will eventually do all of the things on the list while you avoid doing the other things on the list. It's pretty brilliant.

I don't procrastinate about everything. I complete regular work tasks and general stuff-that-needs-to-get-done with occasionally astonishing efficiency. And there are some things that I jump on and finish long before they're actually due. But I think everyone procrastinates about some things, and this is a great way to get stuff done anyway.

Scripture Sunday: Psalm 16

Preserve me, O God, for in You I take refuge.
I say to the Lord, “You are my Lord;
I have no good apart from You.”

As for the saints in the land, they are the excellent ones,
in whom is all my delight.

The sorrows of those who run after another god shall multiply;
their drink offerings of blood I will not pour out
nor take their names on my lips.

The Lord is my chosen portion and my cup;
you hold my lot.
The lines have fallen for me in pleasant places;
indeed, I have a beautiful inheritance.

I bless the Lord who gives me counsel;
in the night also my heart instructs me.
I have set the Lord always before me;
because He is at my right hand, I shall not be shaken.

Therefore my heart is glad, and my whole being rejoices;
my flesh also dwells secure.
For You will not abandon my soul to Sheol,
or let Your holy one see corruption.

You make known to me the path of life;
in your presence there is fullness of joy;
at your right hand are pleasures forevermore.

A Bafflingly Unpopular Opinion About Sleep

I moved away from home at the age of fourteen, kind of. That is to say, I went away to boarding school at that time (by choice--my parents didn't want me to go). Until that fateful trip back to the East Coast, my bedtime was 8:30pm. Yep, at the age of thirteen, I went to bed at 8:30. And that was an upgrade from the normal bedtime of 8:00pm, which I had from a young age until around the spring semester of my eighth grade year. And I will tell you, I often couldn't stay awake long enough to catch the much-anticipated "9 at 9" radio broadcast on my radio alarm clock.

My one fear about boarding school, in fact, was that I wouldn't be able to get my homework done each night because study hall (7:00-9:00pm) ran later than my bedtime of 8:30. Oh Lordy, don't you just cringe for 13 year-old me? Little did I know that I would get less sleep during high school than I would during any other period of my life. I came home during one break and my father woke me up after I'd been asleep for 17 hours. He thought I was dead. I was annoyed he had spoiled a perfectly good stretch of sleep. =)

My point is this. I think that, as adults, we forget how much sleep kids need. Maybe you keep your kids awake longer so you can spend more time with them. Maybe you do it because all their friends are staying up late. Maybe you do it because you stayed up that late as a kid. I will tell you this-- I have learned that adults have zero control over when a child wakes up. Some of them rise an hour before dawn, and there is nothing you can do about that, no matter what. But all of them need a TON of sleep. They are growing at insane rates, physically, mentally, emotionally. They will sleep 14 hours at a stretch if you let them, but until they are teenagers, most of them won't sleep in in the mornings. So put them to bed earlier.

The darling girl I had for nine days of respite care slept 11 hours every single night, without fail. She woke at 7am, and would have no matter what time I put her to bed. Her foster parents were putting her to bed between 9 and 11 each night (it varied). I put her to bed at 8pm, and she was sound asleep by 8:05. That kiddo (and I would argue most kiddos) needed that amount of sleep.

There are two pieces of advice here. One, put your child(ren) to bed early. Earlier than their friends. Earlier than you went to bed as a child. And see what happens. Yes, as a 13 year-old, I didn't always fall asleep right away. But I fell asleep soon, and needed the sleep I got. I never got as many colds as the rest of the kids in my class, I had an easier time paying attention, and I certainly had fewer behavioral issues. Can I chalk all that up to extra sleep? Well, when I tell you that the boarding school I attended changed its winter term hours, extending the morning sleep time by just 30 minutes, thereby reducing campus-wide illness by 85%, you might start believing in the power of sleep.

Second piece of advice: keep it consistent. Put your child(ren) to bed at the same time every night, weekday or weekend. The ability to sleep later when you go to bed later only seems to manifest once you've started college. So keeping them up later on Saturday night does not guarantee a lovely lie-in on Sunday morning. Keep the bedtime consistent, and trade off morning duty with your spouse. If you're single, you may just have to deal with the morning duty (or teach your child how to make his own breakfast).

In all honesty, I wish I went to bed each night at 8:30 now. I think I could use the sleep, and having a consistent sleep routine sounds heavenly to me at this point in my life. Alas, I have so messed up my circadian rhythms that a consistent bedtime is something of a pipe dream. But try it with your kids... I bet you'll be pleasantly surprised!

Great Post on the Church and Orphan Care

Read here.

I am currently trying to find ways to attend this conference, but in the meantime, read the blog I've linked above. Good thoughts!!

Seminary: A Brief Before and After

If God wills it, one month from today I will graduate from Dallas Theological Seminary (!!). So I have spent some time this week reflecting on the past three years (okay fine, I was required to do it for an assignment...)

My overwhelming sense as I look back on seminary is massive gratitude. I could never have imagined that I would learn as much as I have: in the classroom, in friendships, and in time with God. I am saddened though, by the fact that I was often a poor steward of that gift. I wish I had been a sponge, but many days I was a stubborn rock. On my good days, I know that God knows me better than I know myself, and that He hasn’t wasted a single second of my three years at DTS. On my bad days, I just try to read and study as much about His grace and love as I can before my innate legalistic perfectionism raises its whip.

Looking back more objectively, I do see evidence of the Spirit’s work in me during the past three years. Before seminary, I spent zero devotional time in the Word. Now, I do a short reading most mornings, a longer meditation most evenings, and I spend long car rides and commutes listening to an audio CD of the Bible. Those things don’t get me into heaven, but there is evidence of spiritual fruit there, especially since I do them for enjoyment and really sustenance rather than out of a sense of duty. Before seminary, my ministry work focused more on pleasing humans than on pleasing God (though I wouldn’t have recognized it then). Now I find I often forget the extent to which I am serving because it doesn't seem like a separate thing I do, checking off a Christian box. It’s just part of who I am. Before seminary, I didn’t think much at all about any social justice issues, and I didn’t really ever share the gospel. Now I am passionate about orphan care and I teach the gospel to a room full of preschoolers and young-in-faith volunteers each week. Before seminary, I could tell you some facts I knew about God. Now, I know where I stand on major doctrinal issues, and I know which ones will take me the rest of my life to sort out (if not longer... cough eschatology cough).

Beyond all of these small things, though, my experience in seminary has taught me to trust more deeply in the Lord. I am a planner. I like to plot out what I’m doing next and why and where and how and print out maps to get there. I entered seminary with only the faintest notion what God would call me to do after seminary. He has given me amazing glimpses of His plans for me during the past three years, but I still don’t really know what’s next. There are a handful of major possibilities all up in the air right now (one of which I am longing for much more than the others, but that's for a later post). Three years ago, that uncertainty would have driven me to distraction. Today, I can look ahead with great peace and thankfulness (and okay fine, some moments of desperate pleading). I don’t know exactly what God has in store for me, but I know He has never failed to exceed my expectations. I trust that whatever is next, as long as I am faithful to follow His will, will be good, even if it is painful.

I once heard a preacher call marriage the “sanctification super highway.” I think seminary may be a contender for that title as well, not because I am super sanctified, but because it has been a time in which God has hammered intensely at my heart. I've gained great wisdom from all I have learned about the goodness and holiness of God, but also great humility from all I've learned about the wickedness and brokenness in myself. I have found deep passion for loving the fatherless, and deep frustration in working with the flawed. I have found solid direction in following wherever God leads, and also prolonged uncertainty as He has given me glimpses of just one step forward at a time. Seminary has been hard on my soul in ways I didn't expect. But it has been good for me to an extent I never imagined it could be. I have seen, with shame, just how much of my heart is still ruled by a selfish toddler, but I have also seen how relentlessly faithful God is at winning her to His will.

I am the true vine, and My Father is the vinedresser. Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit, He takes away; and every branch that bears fruit, He prunes it so that it may bear more fruit. You are already clean because of the word which I have spoken to you. Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abides in the vine, so neither can you unless you abide in Me. --John 15:1-4

Being Elmo

I have a deep and abiding love for Sesame Street and really all the Muppet creations and projects. Almost all of the TV I watched as a kid featured muppets. We were only allowed to watch one show per day growing up, and I almost always chose Sesame Street. The muppet movies were amazing because they were the only "grown up" movies that had the kind of silliness I treasured as a kid and was terrified I would lose when I became an adult (I still have most of it, phew!).

I was never a huge fan of Elmo though. I think he came along just when I was getting a little old for Sesame Street, and his baby-talk irked rather than entranced me. Plus, I somehow blamed him for the disappearance of my favorite muppet, Grover, who appeared less and less often after Elmo joined the cast. And then of course the bizarre popularity of all the Elmo toys just hit me the wrong way. It's hard to wholeheartedly love something that parents will trample one another to purchase.

But I just watched a short film entitled Being Elmo: A Puppeteer's Journey on Netflix Instant. It's the story of Kevin Clash, the inventor and voice of Elmo. It is awesome. And I may have cried through about 80% of it, not because it is sad, but just because there is something "so dear to my heart" (as my lil sis would say) about the muppets.

I encourage you to watch it, and to watch it as a family. It is a hugely inspiring story for kids to watch, and just a really cool example of someone with talent, passion, and childlike wonder achieving his dream and then spreading joy to others.

Great Post on Transracial Adoption

Head on over to www.rageagainsttheminivan.com to read an insightful post on parenting a transracial family. There's also a post about a recent CNN report on how kids think about race.

Thought-provoking stuff.

Top 25

Earlier today, I cleaned my oven for the first time in 5+ years. As I wiped away indescribable gunk and fought a persistent urge to vomit, I wondered what the heck is in Easy Off, and how it is capable of reducing 5 years' worth of gross baked-on miscellany to a noxious, viscous goo.

About an hour later, the index finger on my left hand began to tingle and hurt. I looked down to discover that it had turned the color of white-out. Panicked, I ran and washed my hands. It looked worse. I rushed downstairs and put olive oil on it (I don't know why). I reread the Easy Off container. It said simply, "wash hands after use." I had. Also, I used only my right hand to wipe away the nasty guck in my oven. So what the heck had happened to my left hand? And would it eat away the skin until only bone remained? Would I lose a finger? (Isn't it lovely how rational the panicked, terrified mind can be?) I finally coated the finger with neosporin, which seems to have helped. It no longer looks like I dipped my finger in white paint. But it still tingles a bit in a painful way, so I figured I would post an awesome link rather than trying to type an entire blog post with my right hand and my left ring finger.

So click here for the top 25 adoption/foster care mom blogs. I follow several of these, and am excited to start reading the rest.

Easter Sunday

Today is Easter. I have been planning for this day for weeks. Worrying about it has kept me up at night, has made work on other projects nearly impossible, and has even sent me, the crowd-phobe, to Walmart.

I was asked to plan/organize/run a giant gym that would be filled with 250 2, 3, and 4 year olds. Kind of a big assignment. And event planning is really not my thing. But I love that age group, and I love Jesus, so I agreed.

I'm not going to lie; it was crazy stressful. And Satan was fighting hard for us all to fail (more on that in another post, but when I tell you we had no air conditioning for several hours, you get the idea of just how petty and irritating that guy can be). And it was a fairly crazy morning. But it was good. The children were delighted, no one had a huge accident (scatological or otherwise), and our volunteers far surpassed my wildest imaginings in terms of creativity, stamina, and general fantastic helpfulness.

The temptation for many of us after a day like today is to brainstorm all the ways we can make it better next year (or at least that is the way I am wired!). But I feel the need to pause a moment and rejoice in how amazingly gracious God was to us today. There is absolutely no earthly reason why such huge numbers of children were so joyous for three hours this morning, why parents were so calm and understanding, or why 100's of volunteers were so gifted and flexible. It was an astonishing morning. In our gym alone, no one cried inconsolably (at least not the whole time!), no one needed an EMT or stitches, and I repeatedly looked across the room to see a dozen toddlers or preschoolers listening with rapt attention to the Easter story, or celebrating the empty tomb with tambourines and shouts of "Hallelujah!"

Yes, I have about a dozen plans whirling in my head about how to make it better next year, and I am grateful to God for those. But most of all, I am stunned by the love and faithfulness He showed His children today, from the oldest and wisest volunteer to the crankiest two-year-old. He was beyond faithful, and I felt immensely honored to witness His power and love through this morning's service.

So as we plan and dream and troubleshoot for next year, I just wanted to spend a moment in grateful awe of the way He powerfully showed up for His children this morning!

He is risen! Hallelujah!

"After Jesus said this, he looked toward heaven and prayed: 'Father, the hour has come. Glorify your Son, that your Son may glorify you. For you granted him authority over all people that he might give eternal life to all those you have given him. Now this is eternal life: that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent.'" --John 17:1-3

Scripture Saturday: Psalm 22

Readers, get ready. I'm about to share with you one of the coolest pieces of information I learned during my time in seminary. It completely revolutionized the way I think about Jesus' final hours on the cross, about the relationship between the Father and the Son, and about the selflessness of Jesus' sacrifice. Yeah, it's that big.

Both Mark and Matthew record the following episode:
"And when the sixth hour had come, there was darkness over the whole land until the ninth hour. And at the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, “Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani?” which means, “My God, my God, why have You forsaken me?” (Mark 15:33-34)

"Now from the sixth hour there was darkness over all the land until the ninth hour. And about the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice, saying, “Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?” that is, “My God, my God, why have You forsaken me?” (Matthew 27:45-46)

Immediately after this moment, Jesus breathes His last and dies, calling out, "Father, into Your hands I commit my spirit!” (Luke 23:46)

When I was younger, I was very confused by this whole exchange. Why would Jesus feel forsaken by the Father? Why would He cry out in anguish that they were separated, but then with His next breath give His Spirit to the Father? It didn't make sense to me. I even, when I was an atheist, used to argue that Jesus' cry proved that God was ignoring Him, and therefore He couldn't be the Son of God.

I have heard sermons explain that Jesus at this moment was experiencing the separation from God that resulted from His taking on all the sin of the world. I agree that sin separates humans from God, but if you believe that God the Father "forsakes" His Son, who is acting in full obedience and is Himself 100% divine as well as 100% human, you get into some murky theological waters. It's a puzzling, and when explained this way, troubling passage.

Troubling, that is, until I heard the following simple yet groundbreaking explanation from several of my professors at seminary. You know how, in our Bibles, all the psalms have handy numbers at the top? I can say "Psalm 23" in a crowded room, and a fair number of people will know I am talking about the psalm that begins, "The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want."

Well, those handy numbers didn't exist in the Scriptures in Jesus' day. Instead, the psalms were known by their first lines, which acted as titles. So Jesus, with His almost final breath, is not railing in anguish at an absent Father. He is yelling out, "Psalm 22!" He is using that excruciatingly painful breath to point the witnesses, the evil-intentioned, the confused, and the faithful, to the message of Psalm 22. And that message is not that the Father forsakes sinners. It is that He spares Himself nothing to rescue them, and points them to His hope with His final breath. Check it out:

My God, my God, why have You forsaken me?
Why are You so far from saving me, from the words of my groaning?
O my God, I cry by day, but You do not answer,
and by night, but I find no rest.
Yet You are holy,
enthroned on the praises of Israel.
In You our fathers trusted;
they trusted, and You delivered them.
To You they cried and were rescued;
in You they trusted and were not put to shame.
But I am a worm and not a man,
scorned by mankind and despised by the people.
All who see me mock me;
they make mouths at me; they wag their heads;
“He trusts in the LORD; let Him deliver him;
let Him rescue him, for he delights in Him!”
Yet You are He who took me from the womb;
You made me trust You at my mother's breasts.
On You was I cast from my birth,
and from my mother's womb You have been my God.
Be not far from me,
for trouble is near,
and there is none to help.
Many bulls encompass me;
strong bulls of Bashan surround me;
they open wide their mouths at me,
like a ravening and roaring lion.
I am poured out like water,
and all my bones are out of joint;
my heart is like wax;
it is melted within my breast;
my strength is dried up like a potsherd,
and my tongue sticks to my jaws;
You lay me in the dust of death.
For dogs encompass me;
a company of evildoers encircles me;
they have pierced my hands and feet—
I can count all my bones—
they stare and gloat over me;
they divide my garments among them,
and for my clothing they cast lots.
But You, O LORD, do not be far off!
O You my help, come quickly to my aid!
Deliver my soul from the sword,
my precious life from the power of the dog!
Save me from the mouth of the lion!
You have rescued me from the horns of the wild oxen!
I will tell of Your name to my brothers;
in the midst of the congregation I will praise You:
You who fear the LORD, praise Him!
All you offspring of Jacob, glorify Him,
and stand in awe of Him, all you offspring of Israel!
For He has not despised or abhorred
the affliction of the afflicted,
and He has not hidden His face from him,
but has heard, when he cried to Him.
From You comes my praise in the great congregation;
my vows I will perform before those who fear Him.
The afflicted shall eat and be satisfied;
those who seek Him shall praise the LORD!
May your hearts live forever!
All the ends of the earth shall remember
and turn to the LORD,
and all the families of the nations
shall worship before You.
For kingship belongs to the LORD,
and He rules over the nations.
All the prosperous of the earth eat and worship;
before Him shall bow all who go down to the dust,
even the one who could not keep himself alive.
Posterity shall serve Him;
it shall be told of the Lord to the coming generation;
they shall come and proclaim His righteousness to a people yet unborn,
that He has done it.

That is the God I serve. That is the God I adore. The God who stooped low, who poured Himself out to bring wretched sinners into righteousness. And that is why I will joyfully proclaim His righteousness to people just recently born tomorrow. May our preschool room resound with His praises!!

Why Good Friday is Good

Today is a Christian holy day called "Good Friday." As a kid, I was confused by this name-- I thought it should be called Black Friday, because the sky went dark for three hours when Jesus died. But of course that name has already been taken by the day after Thanksgiving, when Americans celebrate shopping.

Why would a major religion celebrate the day on which its main figure dies a shameful, public, excruciating death? And why would it be called "Good?"

We call it good because Jesus' death saved the world. Christ died on the cross for us in our place, bearing for us the penalty of sin which we would have to bear but for His substitutionary death.(Mark 10:45; Rom 5:6-8; 2 Cor 5:14; Gal 3:13; 1 Peter 3:18) Those of us who believe in Christ are spared the punishment of eternal death because Christ bore our sins and was punished on our behalf.(John 5:24; Rom 4:25) That is really good news for a sinful, broken world.

But mostly, we call it Good Friday (even though I think it was actually a Thursday, but that's another blog post) because of what happens on Sunday. Check this out.