What's So Good About Good Friday?

 In speaking about his film The Passion of the Christ, Mel Gibson said the hands you see nailing Christ's hands to the cross are his.  It stands as Gibson's only appearance in the film and his hands are all you see.  (I'd need to watch the film again to see if I can spot him among the Roman soldiers at all or if he just stepped in enough so only his hands hammering away could be seen...which is what I recall him saying was the case.)  His explanation was that he recognized his own sinfulness and thus, as is true of all sinners, he was responsible for Christ's crucifixion and thus it made sense to him to symbolically be the one to crucify Christ.  That's quite the profound statement.  It's certainly true of all of us.  It could have been any of us whose hands were used for that scene and the point Gibson made would still be a righteous position.  

Christ's death on the cross was a long time coming, going all the way back to the eating of forbidden fruit.  At that point sin came into the world and all animal sacrifice for the atonement of sins were a foreshadowing of His sacrifice.  He came as the perfect Lamb of God to be offered up as a propitiation for us and by doing so provided us with the means by which we can one day come into God's presence.  And He was the perfect Lamb because He's God Incarnate and God is perfect.  There could be no other sacrifice offered because none were perfect.  Animals chosen for the purpose were as perfect as possible, yet not perfect in reality because only God is perfect.  

So God became Man, offered Himself to be put to death by mankind, in order to appease Himself for the benefit of mankind.

When I hear from those who criticize Scripture...specifically God...for creating man and giving him free will to reject Him, His ultimate purpose should be enough for these people to stifle.  Which of us would allow others to be themselves and then in being himself a man does us harm, would then offer ourselves to be imprisoned or fined for what that man did to us?  Anyone?  Bueller?

This was the Good News Jesus brought...that we'd be allowed to be regarded as perfect and worthy of being in God's presence as if we not born in sin and thus possessed of a sin nature.  And it happened because Christ shed His Blood which paid our debt, which washed away our sin nature and we are thus provided in our acceptance of Christ as our Savior. 

Jesus didn't die because he pissed off the Jews or the Romans.  He died because we were in need of God and His death provided the means by which we can be with Him.  He died because we're sinners.  Those are our hands driving those nails.