Lilli’s lip was busted up the other night, akin to something that would’ve come out of a heavy-weight ring. Tender skin against a tooth at just the right angle to cause trauma and swelling. Accusations were made against a rowdy younger brother, and even though he said he was sorry, and gave her a hug, he still got a spanking for hitting her in the face.

However, the next morning, a guilty conscience won out and the truth was told. He hadn’t done it on purpose, it was revealed, and she’d let him take a punishment he didn’t deserve. Filled with remorse, it was her turn to make apologies and have some consequences of her own for letting him take the fall.

I woke up this Good Friday morning thinking about it. It’s a normal part of siblings growing up together, learning how to get along, but, albeit simplistic, it’s what today is all about. A completely innocent Savior took the fall for all the sins of the world.

ALL.

None of which He’d committed.

He was mocked and scorned and suffered bogus accusations, was savagely beaten and flogged, then had tendon separated from bone as dirty nails were hammered through his flesh into the wood that served as his murder site. Then, worst of all, Father turned away from Son, as holiness prohibited the view of a world’s culmination of filth.

But then the truth won out, and a veil was torn, holiness now able to commune with filth washed clean.

We still have consequences for the sins we commit, like a little girl with a fat lip who finally told the truth. But you and I?

We are no longer condemned.

Love won, in a kitchen in Texas, and on a hill called Calvary. And it was a GOOD day.

For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that whomever believes in Him shall not perish, but have everlasting life. ~ John 3:16 NIV