Believe It or Not

A lot of people have a hard time believing in the resurrection of Jesus. It goes against what we understand about the natural world. It’s hard to explain.
Come to think of it, Good Friday is even harder to explain. Jesus willingly and knowingly suffered the ultimate penalty so we would not have to. When we read about his agony in the Garden of Gethsemane, we can see that no superhuman strength was granted to allow Him to bypass the agony of His choice. He endured all the fear, despair, and loneliness of separation from God so we would not have to.
I used to think of Good Friday as the time of somber reflection before the joyous relief of grace on Easter morning. Indeed, it is a somber time. But maybe grace didn’t wait until Easter to show up. Grace wouldn’t be real if it wasn’t hard, if it didn’t cost something. What could be harder than the work of grace accomplished on that Good Friday?
Maybe the resurrection was the easy part.