Why do we call it good? Every human event in the history of the creation involved either God handing out justice, which is to be celebrated, or demonstrating grace, which is to be celebrated. Every event save the one we call good. There, a human man who had no evil in Him, who had done no wrong, suffered not just the indignity of a public humiliation, not just the physical torture of death by crucifixion but the wrath of almighty God poured out upon Him for the guilt of all His children. While the rest of the world is tied in mental knots trying to answer their question as to why bad things happen to good people we know that only happened once, and He volunteered. Only once did not just a bad thing but the worst thing imaginable happen to not just a good man but the greatest man. And we call it good.
We call it good because it was good. It pleased the Lord to bruise Him (Isaiah 53: 10). This event, the darkest event ever, was pleasing to our Father. He did not take a fiendish, sadistic delight in it. Instead He took delight in manifesting the glory of His plan to redeem us, unworthy rebels that we were. Isaiah helps us understand two truths that we think oppose each other. First, that it was the Father’s wrath. Most assuredly it was. Our redemption, however, isn’t something the Son wheedles out of the Father. The Father didn’t begrudgingly accept His Son as the substitute. He sent Him, because He loves us. Which means, second, that He delighted to do so. In the same manner Jesus suffered immeasurably. The agony was unfathomably real. But He went through it joyfully, because He loves us.
It has been said, and wisely so, that at the cross justice and mercy kiss. By the cross God is both just and our justifier. The debt is paid, the punishment doled out. And by it we, in union with Him, are declared to be righteous, while we are yet in ourselves unrighteous. Because we are in union with Him on the cross, our sin becomes His, His punishment becomes ours and we walk together out of the tomb as heirs of all things and into the new creation. Just as justice and mercy kiss, so too do the Father and the Son. Just as we are in union with the Son, so the Son and the Father are in unity together. One purpose, one plan, one emotive response to His people.
The darkest day is that day when the One who first said, “Let there be light” and the One who is the Light of the World together joyfully rescued us to the everlasting praise of their glory. That is why we call it good.