Holy week.  A time of mad dashes to the grocery store or WalMart for pastel colored baskets to put plastic eggs filled with candy and worthless toys that our children thrive on and expect.  The Easter Egg hunt and the push to invite as many people as you can to the church service that you will be attending.  Or maybe just trying to find a church to go to on Sunday because that is what you have always done.  It's the pretty dresses for little girls that they will never wear again and the tie on your button up shirt that you haven't worn since last year.  Its a time to show up to church with the masses and listen to a message about the resurrection of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and commit, much like a new year's resolution, to be better this year than you were during the last one.  But what's it all really about?

We have commercialized Easter so much as a retail holiday that many people in the world have forgotten just how special this week is.  In my opinion there are four pinnacle days in your Christianity; they are:

• 1.  Christmas. The birth of Jesus...without His birth there would be no salvation.

Good Friday is what I want to talk about for a minute because it is, in my opinion, one of the most amazing feats of faith that one has ever taken. Our Lord, Jesus, a man and our God allowed Himself to be taken into the hands of a group of people that had listened to Him in the synagogues, seen Him heal the sick.  They had watched Him cast out demons and perform countless miracles.  He was betrayed into the courts of a non-chalant and weak ruler who didn't want anything to do with the case before him.  He (Pilate) asked the people what to do and inevitably Jesus was sentenced to death by crucifixion.

He was beaten, scourged, taunted, whipped and crowned with thorns.  He was then placed upon a cross.  Soldiers nailed spikes through his hands and feet and propped Him up for everybody to see.  They hung a sign above His head to mock Him and left Him there to die.  While He hung, people mocked Him and took His belongings (Mark 15:25-32). 

The Bible clearly states that He died that day on the cross.  He had been tortured and killed for no good earthly reason.  There is another side of the story though.  At that moment He breathed His last breath, the veil of the temple was torn in two.  The time for sacrifice had passed.  The sin of the world had been heaped upon this man, Jesus, and He had endured till the end without faling prey to it.  While He hung there dying He was enduring the weight of your sin and my sin and all the sin that had already taken place.

That day Jesus stood in the gap for you and I.  He took our place.  For centuries, there had only been animal sacrifice available for forgiveness of sins until that day; that Good Friday my Lord stood in the gap for me.  He became the sacrificial lamb, once and for all.  The law had been fulfilled by this sacrifice fully and with finality.  Whether you believe that He was crucified on Wednesday, Thursday, or Friday, let us not forget the importance of this key to our faith and salvation.  He did die for you and me.  It wasn't pretty.  It wasn't nice, and it wasn't fair, but He did.  He died, and best of all, He rose again conquering death once and for all.

As we spend this weekend celebrating the resurrection, spring time, easter eggs and bunnies, let us not forget what happened first.  He did it.  He died for you and I because we wouldn't and couldn't do it for ourselves.  Because He did, I am.  Because He did, we can.  Because He did, we will.  He did.