What Good Can Come?

"But He was wounded for our transgressions; He was crushed for our iniquities; upon Him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with His stripes we are healed." - Isaiah 53:5

What good can come? Have you, like me, been asking that question lately? Has it bubbled to the surface as you sit and watch the news reports on TV or scroll through feeds on the internet? This question is often born out of adversity. It arrives with the birth pangs of every difficult situation. We tend to first ask, "Why?" On its heels follows the next query: "What good can come from this?"

Life can throw some pretty difficult curve balls our way. One minute we're sailing along without a care, flying high, and the next we find ourselves in pits too dark and steep to even imagine a way out. These "depressions" can take many forms, and, unfortunately, no one is immune from experiencing them. Perhaps ours entailed keeping watch over the hospital bed of a sick child. Maybe it was in standing alongside a casket at the cemetery. We find ourselves in trenches over lost jobs, broken marriages, prodigal children, unimaginable diagnoses.

We shake our heads in disbelief and question what good can come over losing a loved one bit by bit to the ravages of dimentia. We crave answers when a young man dies in war, when a mother loses her baby, when an innocent bystander is shot and killed by a stray bullet meant for another's demise, when children suffer abuse, when students and parishoners are mowed down in their school rooms and sanctuaries... when we experience terrorism on our homefront... when there is a deadly pandemic.

So. Many. Questions. Chief among them is this: "What good can come?" It seems if we knew the answer to THAT question, if we knew that somehow, some way, good would come out of these deep places, we'd be able to cope. We'd be able to get through the darkness, to climb out of the pit.

As much as I'd like to say that we will be given all the answers, I can't. I don't have anything to offer on that front, but God does. He made us a promise. We can read it in Romans 8:28. "And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to His purpose." We cry out to God in our anger and pain. We wonder and we question, but God knows. He has the answers, and what's more... He cares. He has seen it all, the destruction, the devastation, the depression, the denials... the desertions. He has seen it and He has also experienced it.

Here we are at Good Friday, this day bringing to culmination all our griefs and sorrows over the effects of sin in our lives. All the deep places we have ever experienced, the troughs of sadness and despair we bring with us to the foot of the cross.... and we leave them there. Today we are bonded in the most miraculous of ways to the One who would freely and completely graft our sins onto Himself that we might be given His righteousness. It is amost inconceivable, isn't it, that One who was perfect in every way would take upon Himself every filthy, despicable thought, word, and deed we've ever done? He would carry the weight of each and every sin, would be abandoned by His Father, and would die a horrific death... for us... in our place, and He would do it willingly.

Questions? I know there must have been many people over the course of Jesus' suffering that Friday who had questions too. Perhaps Pilate ruminated over his decree, wondering what good could possibly come from crucifying an innocent man. Surely the disciples stood shaking their heads over the seemingly needless death of their beloved Lord. They still didn't fully comprehend all that must take place for the Scriptures to be fulfilled. What about the women there that day... Mary, Jesus' mother? She knew that her son was born to save mankind, but could she have ever imagined such a cruel end? How the prophetic words of Simeon must have come flooding back... this was the sword that would pierce her own soul.

What good can come?!

Along with our sins, every question we ever had, every concern, every "why" was swallowed up in Jesus' death, for He paid the price to win the answers... ALL of them. Am I forgiven? YES. Can I have a relationship with the Father? YES. Will I inherit eternal life? YES, if you believe in Jesus and what He did for you on the cross. Is Satan defeated? YES! Can God bring good out of every situation? YES. That, sweet friends, is His promise. It was signed, sealed, and delivered that first Good Friday.

I guess that brings us back to today, doesn't it? If we want to know what good can come from hardship, difficulty... death, we need look no further than that first Good Friday. All the suffering Jesus endured, all the tongue wagging, the derision, the beatings... the thorns, the nails. Why would we ever call a day like that "good"?! It's because with HIS suffering and death, WE won. Jesus' death served a purpose, the greatest purpose of all... redemption, OUR redemption. Sin was swallowed up. Death was swallowed up. Satan was defeated once and for all; he holds no power over us.

Yes, I know. I'm fully aware that bad things still happen. I know that though sin, death, and the devil were defeated once and for all that Friday two thousand years ago, this world and everyone in it still feels the effects of sin; but there is a world of difference between feeling its effects and being defeat by it. Questions often arrive with birth pangs, especially birth pangs of difficulty, but something beautiful and miraculous can also come out of those birth pangs. How do I know? It's a promise packaged wonderfully for us in that verse from Romans 8, "...for those who love God all things work together for good...."

A God who can bring salvation to sinners, who can turn darkness to light, who can take even death and turn it into life can certainly take our questions and turn them into answers we can live with. "What good can come?" God knows. He cares. He has the answers. He proved it on that first Good Friday. It involves trust, yes, but Who better to trust with your life than the One who secured eternal life for us by His death... and resurrection.

This is not the end of the story... not by a long shot. What good can come? You just wait and see.

God bless you this wonderful Good Friday as we remember what Jesus did for us with His death, and may we look forward together to celebrating His answer on Easter Sunday!