Good Friday
As I’ve grown in my Christian faith I look back on those days and the loneliness I felt then intensifies as I think on the pain He must have suffered while hanging on that cross. While the physical pain of crucifixion is incomprehensible, I’m wondering what part of the pain was caused by Him carrying our my sin.
Gratitude for His sacrifice for me on that cross goes without saying of course, but the message I pray Mormons would grasp is that He would’ve hung there regardless of their decision to accept Him as their Savior or not. As a Mormon I realize that’s a mighty tall concept to grasp, but it’s true. He came here with a plan and He was fulfilling that plan on that day.
In the Encyclopedia of Mormonism there is no entry for Good Friday, but you will find an entry for godhood, gold plates and gospel of Abraham. I found it interesting that none of those three things are real.
If you look in Mormon Doctrine which is another encyclopedic work published by the Church, you’ll find the entries of Good Book, Good Shepherd and Good Works. There is nothing about Good Friday at all.
Because Mormons have been taught that Jesus paid for their sin in the Garden of Gethsemane I looked for an entry on Maundy Thursday in both research books and found nothing.
But interestingly enough Mormon Doctrine did carry an entry for crucifixion. Here in part is what it said;
“Few if any forms of execution are or could be more painful and agonizing than that of crucifixion…At the Second Coming these same wounds will stand as a witness to the Jews that he is the Crucified One, their King whom they rejected in the meridian of time. (D. & C. 45:51-52; Zech. 12:10; 13:6.)”
Sadly what they didn’t expound upon is the very last reference they gave in Zechariah 12:10; 13:6. If they could focus upon these remarkable prophetic words from this Old Testament prophet they’d see for themselves what a true prophecy is.
Zechariah 12:10; 13:6; “And I will pour upon the house of David, and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the spirit of grace and of supplications: and they shall look upon me whom they have pierced, and they shall mourn for him, as one mourneth for his only son, and shall be in bitterness for him, as one that is in bitterness for his firstborn.”
“And one shall say unto him, What are these wounds in thine hands? Then he shall answer, Those with which I was wounded in the house of my friends.”
On each Good Friday I’m always praying the Mormons would ask themselves how they got to Easter without any reference to His death beforehand. I’m sure I wasn’t the only little Mormon kid who had questions about the “weird holiday” on the Friday before.
With Love in Christ;
Michelle
1 Cor. 1:18