What's so good about Good Friday?

What's so good about Good Friday?

Quin Hillyer of the American Spectator shares a meditation on Jesus' death, which is marked today some 2,000 years after it happened.

Here's the crux:

...we have one thing onto which we can hold, one thing that is no fairy tale but is indisputable, historical fact. What we have is the evidence of 1,980 years. We have the fact that something happened of such weight and power, something so convincing and life-altering, that 11 male disciples and several women were able, by their witness alone, to convince first dozens and then hundreds and then the vast majority of Western civilization (and eventually large swaths of Oriental and African civilization as well) that what they had seen and experienced was very real, very potent, and profoundly redemptive. Jesus of Nazareth commanded no armies and conquered no territory. Jesus' followers had no political power, no physical might, no means of mass communication, and no particularly obvious claim to credibility. Yet they, those rejoicing but burdened few, who saw the empty tomb and the risen Christ, somehow became imbued with such charisma and spirit, such aura and such powers of persuasion, that they convinced those who heard them that their odd tale of a risen Christ was believable. Their handiwork, the handiwork of poor fishermen and laborers who became preachers and healers, is an incontrovertible fact of history. Their ministry happened. With the help of one Saul of Tarsus, who originally tried to wipe them out, their ministry grew. It grew, and it raised an entire civilization from the ashes.

Read the whole thing here. It's well done. Happy Easter.