Today is the Friday before Easter. It's the day that we remember Jesus dying on the cross, traditionally called Good Friday.

Here's what we remember on Good Friday. Let me set the scene: Jesus, God's own son, willingly traveled to Jerusalem, knowing that one of his closest friends was going to betray him. But Jesus came anyway, and was arrested, falsely accused, mocked, beaten, whipped, tortured, and then executed. He had nails driven through his hands and feet. He had a spear thrust into his side. He had a crown of thorns brutally put upon his brow...all of this done on "good" Friday.

A few people, including Mary, Jesus' mother, gathered and wept as they watched him hanging there, in extreme pain, like a common criminal, struggling to breathe. And finally, in his last breath, he gasped, "It is finished."

The sky turned black, and it sure seemed like it was finished, like all was lost.   

In that moment, it seems like chaos would conquer.
It seems like evil had triumphed, like hate had prevailed.
It seems like fear had overwhelmed, like death had won, like hope was gone.
It seems like nothing good could come from this.

I don't know what the last few weeks have felt like for you. There has been a lot of good, and a lot of bad. And even though people have risen to the occasion to help people, encourage people, love people, there is still part of me that can relate to what those who followed Jesus must have felt on this "good" Friday. Overwhelming fear. Fleeting hope. Unavoidable death.

But there is one thing that WE know that the disciples didn't on that Friday, and it's the very thing that makes that Friday "good."

Sunday is coming.

In the midst of the evil and hate and fear and hopelessness, no matter how we feel right now, no matter how dark things seem, no matter if all seems lost, Sunday is coming.

The disciples didn't know Jesus was going to raise from the dead. They didn't know he was going to leave an empty tomb. That Jesus was going to definitively conquer fear with peace, conquer hate with love, conquer death with life.

Friday is good because Sunday is coming.

And friends, if you're feeling darkness right now, feeling like it is finished.

Hold onto the fact that even though it's Friday today, Sunday is coming.

Whatever it takes,

Adam Johnson