We have two sayings on which we base our message to the world. At the end of many Good Friday services, it is tradition to say “It’s Friday but Sunday is coming.” On Easter Sunday often the service begins with “He has risen” and the congregation responds, “He has risen indeed.” I may only be speaking for myself but boy, do we take for granted what we not only believe to be true but I would step out on a limb and say for the vast majority of those who are Christians and for all who truly follow Christ, we know this is true!

We mourn on Friday. We rejoice on Sunday and then we go about our lives secure in the knowledge that Jesus the Christ died for our sins and rose from the dead. Death lost. Sin lost. Satan lost. Many lost. Not because what Jesus accomplished is incomplete. Not because what we have accomplished is not enough. Jesus did all that needed to be done and what we have done, are doing and will do, is irrelevant outside of placing our faith in the completed work of Christ.

I propose that anyone who reads the Easter story, whether they consider it historically accurate or a work of fiction, would agree on one point, Jesus’ death is the most tragic death ever. One who did nothing wrong is killed in place of all who continually do wrong. His conviction and sentence were a miscarriage of justice. His punishment barbaric by any standard. What has come to be known as Good Friday is the saddest day in history, or is it?

Every day those who see Easter as a religious fairytale, those who refuse to embrace the power of the cross, are one breath closer to their last. Every day someone dies without placing their faith in Jesus which means as sad as Jesus death is, those who find no meaning in it make every day the saddest day in history.