For us Christians, Good Friday represents the day our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ was crucified for the redemption of mankind.
We reflect on the ultimate price He paid to restore a divine relationship with the human race.
He paid the penalty of sin for anyone and everyone who will accept payment by repenting of their sins and allowing Him to be the Lord of their life.
Incidentally, it isn’t called Good Friday because believers think His death is “good”, but because the word “good” once carried the definition “holy”.
In fact, other parts of the world actually refer to the day as “Sacred Friday” and “Passion Friday”. Nevertheless, the significance of Easter is not on the day.
Nor is it on the aesthetics that secular humanism has imposed on this season over the years.
It is on sacrificial love, forgiveness, patience, restoration, acceptance and a relentless pursuit of an imperfect being by a perfect God.
It’s an embodiment of marriage, and a God who’s willing to go the extra mile to restore a broken relationship with His lover – humankind.
It is the ultimate expression of His goodness and kindness, two essential ingredients that, when expressed even in marriage, can change the direction of the relationship 180 degrees.
However, the meaning of Easter digs further than mending broken relationships, into the very purpose why God created marriage.
The primary purpose of marriage is not to produce children, or for life companionship, or having an exclusive sexual partner. These are perks of marriage in an ideal world.Nowadays, it’s become normal to get these perks outside marriage in acts of perversion.It’s also become possible to be in a marriage and get none of them. There are many married people who are childless, lonely and engaging in extra-marital affairs.We live in a society that is at pains to fight the idea of God out of marriage.In our narcissism and delusions of grandeur as human race, we claim marriage to be a social construct – a product of human creation.And we give all sorts of ideas to try defining it, even if those definitions and purposes keep changing from one generation to another.You see, over the years we’ve come to strongly conclude that marriage cannot be a social construct. Society simply cannot define marriage.None of us can.This is because society never actually invented marriage in the first place.We can’t define what we didn’t create.We are only allowed room to describe and explain it.For if we could define it, then it is merely a construction that culture and society is free to change whenever it desires.Marriage is a God-construct. And we cannot truly comprehend it apart from God.Hence seeking to remove God outside marriage leaves you with a man-made prickly pear of a relationship that shadows the reality of what is meant to be a divine institution.In fact, marriage doesn’t even begin with the family. It is the other way round. Family begins with marriage, and family constructs society.Bricks are not the result of the building, since the building is made up of bricks. The natural design begins with marriage, then family, and then society. You first have to have marriage and family before you can have a society. It is marriage and family then that construct society, and not the other way round. All society does is to enact laws that still can’t create or define marriage, but protect and govern human relations in a domestic setup.The foundational truth about marriage and its purpose is that God is the author of marriage. And He established it for purposes of displaying the totality of His image on Earth as well as for marriage to mirror His relationship with humankind.Again, as Easter signifies, God’s relationship with humankind is that of sacrificial love, forgiveness, patience, restoration, acceptance and a relentless pursuit of an imperfect being by a perfect God.The essence of Easter is an embodiment of marriage.Furthermore, marriage is based on the fundamental truth that men and women are complementary, the biological fact that reproduction depends on a man and a woman, and the objective reality that children need a mother and father. Seeking to redefine marriage in any other way fundamentally rejects these truths. Marriage is society’s least restrictive means of ensuring the wellbeing of children.By encouraging the fundamental norms of marriage – monogamy, exclusivity and permanence – the state strengthens civil society and reduces its own role.The future of this country depends on the future of marriage. The future of marriage depends on citizens’ understanding of what it is, why it matters and demanding that government policies support, and not undermine it.For the idea of marriage, Easter is a perfect example of why God created it in the first place. Married couples are to submit to one another as the church submits to Christ, and love each other as Christ loved the church by sacrificing His own life on her behalf.Missing the significance of sacrificial love in marriage, is to miss the point of Easter.God cut a covenant with Himself by giving his very life through crucifixion to restore a relationship with humankind.And that is the essence of love in marriage, being prepared to give your very life for your spouse.