Why do we call Good Friday “good?”

Thousands of years ago, a man went into a garden to pray with his disciples. This man was Jesus, who was both a man and God’s son. He went to the garden to pray that God would change his fate, that he would not have to go through agonizing pain and a gruesome death. He prayed so hard and so fervently that he began to sweat droplets of blood.

However, because of God’s love for us and because of our own sin nature, Jesus willingly accepted his Father’s will and when the Pharisees came to take him away, he went with them without a fight. When his disciples fled, Jesus was left alone. He was taken before several courts and tried unfairly for crimes he did not commit.

In fact, one of the judge’s, a man named Pilate, knew that Jesus was innocent. However, swayed by the crowd’s demands, he…