Pierced for Us: Why Good Friday Is Holy

Elijah Rivers

[calm] Welcome to the show. I'm Elijah Rivers, here with Marcus Jordan. Marcus, I can't get away from this scene: on Sunday the crowd is crying, "Hosanna," and by Friday that same Jesus is led outside the city gate to die. The Christian calendar looks at that day and, somehow, calls it GOOD Friday. Not because the pain was small, not because the injustice was light, but because on that dark ground, God was doing holy work.

Marcus Jordan

[reflective] That turn from "Hosanna" to a cross in less than a week... that's the part that sticks with me. Five days. That's not ancient-history distance, that's like the emotional whiplash of one workweek. And calling it holy ground instead of just tragedy -- man, that changes how you stand in the story.

Elijah Rivers

It does. And to hear that holiness rightly, I want to read Isaiah 53:3 through 6, written roughly 700 years before the crucifixion. "He was despised and rejected by mankind, a man of suffering, and familiar with pain. Like one from whom people hide their faces he was despised, and we held him in low esteem. Surely he took up our pain and bore our suffering, yet we considered him punished by God, stricken by him, and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was on him, and by his wounds we are healed. We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to our own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all."

Marcus Jordan

[softly] "Pierced for our transgressions." That word -- PIERCED. Isaiah doesn't just say suffering in general. He doesn't give us some blurry prediction like, you know, "a hard season is coming." He names rejection, pain, wounds, and then he hits that line: "the punishment that brought us peace was on him." That's substitution. That's somebody else stepping into the bill with your name on it.

Elijah Rivers

Exactly right. The precision is startling. "Despised and rejected." "Crushed for our iniquities." "The Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all." This is not merely a righteous man suffering near sinners. This is the innocent one bearing what belonged to the guilty. And that changes the listener's posture. We are not just meant to observe Good Friday like witnesses to a sad event. We are meant to bow in worship, because Isaiah tells us why the Servant suffers: for OUR transgressions, OUR iniquities, OUR peace.

Marcus Jordan

[questioning tone] So let me try to say it back, and you fix me if I bend it wrong. Good Friday is holy, not because suffering itself is holy, but because in THIS suffering -- Isaiah 53 suffering -- God is reconciling sinners to himself?

Elijah Rivers

[warmly] Yes. That's well said. The cross is where justice and mercy meet. And before we rush anywhere else, we ought to let those words land. He was despised. He was pierced. He was crushed. And it was not random. It was redemptive.

Elijah Rivers

[grave] Now listen to John 19:28 through 30. "Later, knowing that everything had now been finished, and so that Scripture would be fulfilled, Jesus said, 'I am thirsty.' A jar of wine vinegar was there, so they soaked a sponge in it, put the sponge on a stalk of the hyssop plant, and lifted it to Jesus' lips. When he had received the drink, Jesus said, 'It is finished.' With that, he bowed his head and gave up his spirit."

Marcus Jordan

[pauses] John gives that sequence so carefully. "Everything had now been finished" -- THEN "I am thirsty" -- THEN the drink -- THEN "It is finished." It's almost like every movement matters. This isn't a man slipping accidentally into death. This is a man completing something on purpose.

Elijah Rivers

That's the weight of it. And that final declaration, "It is finished," carries the sense of tetelestai -- a completed work, a transaction fully accomplished. In the language of commerce, the idea is not "I am finished," like defeat. It's "paid in full." Debt satisfied. Obligation met. Nothing left outstanding.

Marcus Jordan

[sharply] "Paid in full" is the phrase that won't leave me alone. Not "mostly covered." Not "here's a down payment, you handle the rest." Paid in full. I mean, if you've ever had a bill hanging over your head, and then you see a zero balance -- that's a concrete feeling. You're saying ancient listeners could hear tetelestai with THAT kind of financial finality?

Elijah Rivers

Yes, that kind of finality. A settled account. And spiritually, that means the cross is not simply the sad end of Jesus' earthly life. It is the completion of the Father's redemptive work through the Son. The sacrifice has been offered. The payment has been rendered. The work is done.

Marcus Jordan

[reflective] See, and that distinction changes Good Friday for me. Because if I hear the cross only as the end of a life, I stand there mainly in grief. Real grief, yes. But if I hear "It is finished" as the completion of a work, then grief and gratitude show up together. The worst thing human hands did became the very place where God said, "The debt is handled."

Elijah Rivers

Amen. And one more thing -- John says Jesus "gave up his spirit." Even there, we hear sovereignty, not helplessness. He is not overtaken by events. He lays down his life. So on Good Friday, believers do not gather around a failed mission. We gather around a finished redemption.

Marcus Jordan

[soft laugh of amazement] A finished redemption. That's the phrase. Because "It is finished" doesn't close the door on hope -- it OPENS it.