Celebrating Good Friday seems a little strange – after all, it is the day commemorating Christ’s death on the cross. But when you put Good Friday in perspective with Easter and Christ’s resurrection, it becomes one of the most humbling and awe-inspiring holidays we celebrate. Just think about it – Christ died…for us! He underwent unimaginable pain and suffering because He loves us so much.

The Good Friday service at RH Orange began with a 4-station prayer experience. We began by taking a moment to allow God to open our hearts to what we were about to experience, laying down the distractions of life before Him. This was in preparation for the first station – the tree of hearts. Here, we took crayons and markers and created a visual representation of what was on our hearts that day. It was a great way to take a look and see what we needed to give to God, and what we needed to celebrate and thank Him for.

The next station was my favorite – the Passover frame. The giant door jambs, covered in red paint, really reminded me of the huge impact the Passover story in Exodus had on the people. After reading Exodus 12:5-7,12-13 and 1 Peter 1:18-21, we took up paint brushes and marked the door jambs with red paint, representing the blood of the lamb, just as the Israelites did. Of course, we are also reminded in this moment of Jesus as the Lamb of God, and His blood sacrifice, which saved us.

At the third station, we wrote what was keeping us from walking forward wholly with God down – the sins we struggle with, the chains holding us down. The fourth station was a cross, where we prayed a repentance prayer and pinned those papers to the cross, as a symbolic act of dying to that sin and trusting Jesus to deal with it for us.

The four stations led into the service, where Matt spoke about the cross and the impact of the Good Friday story. One part of his sermon that stood out to me was of how the cross has become almost a trivial symbol of our faith – when in fact, it’s a symbol of Roman torture, and of Christ’s huge sacrifice for us. We wear and use crosses without a second thought, but we should see them as a constant reminder of God’s love for us – He gave His son, put Him on a cross to suffer and die in extreme pain, so that we could be with Him forever! That’s an incredible thought, and one that I’ll always remember when I see or wear a cross in the future.

The Good Friday service was a great way for me to open myself up in preparation for the Easter celebration, and was a reminder to me of how incredible God’s love for us is. After the service was over, we walked out under the Passover frame we had painted earlier, past the cross, covered in our sins, and the tree of hearts, which had been decorated with our heart drawings, reminding us that our sins and the struggles of our hearts are not ours to deal with alone. Jesus died for every part of us – the good and the bad, the sins and the joys, and that’s certainly something to celebrate.