Good Friday and "The Great Instead" | A Poem That Helps You Sit With the Cross

Good Friday has a way of stripping the air out of a room. It’s the day when the story looks like it’s falling apart: the King isn’t crowned, He’s crucified, and what should feel like victory feels like loss. If you’ve ever stared at your own life and thought, “This can’t be how it ends,” you’ll recognize the tension we’re sitting in here. 

I’m Tosha Williams, founder of Family Disciple Me Ministry and co-founder of Vanguard Church in Colorado Springs, and I want to slow down during Holy Week instead of rushing to the celebration. I share why I turn to poetry when plain teaching can’t carry the weight, and I read a Good Friday poem I wrote called “The Great Instead.” Line by line, it traces the exchanges of the cross: throne replaced by wood, honor replaced by mockery, light replaced by darkness, hope laid in a tomb. Then it turns, showing the deeper Christian theology of atonement and reversal, where God breaks sin’s curse and brings light through what looks like defeat. 

This is a reflective, prayerful Good Friday meditation for anyone seeking a deeper walk with Jesus, a clearer view of the crucifixion, and language for suffering that still makes room for hope. After you listen, share it with someone who needs steady hope and subscribe for more faith-based discipleship. 

What “instead” do you most need God to write into your story right now? Spend time with Jesus this week. Listen and linger with Him, then lead someone else in His Presence this Easter!

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The Family Disciple Me ministry exists to catalyze devotion driven discipleship in our homes and around the world. We believe that discipleship starts with a conversation, and FDM provides free, easily-accessible, biblical resources to encourage these meaningful conversations  along life's way. Sign up through our website to be "the first to know" about upcoming releases and resources (including the FDM App - coming soon!!!) You can also follow Family Disciple Me on social media. 

Family Disciple Me  is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit ministry, and all donations are tax deductible. More information, blogs, statement of faith and contact info can be found at familydiscipleme.org 

Transcript

Who I Am And Why This Matters

Slowing Down With Poetry

The Great Instead Poem

Closing Prayer Of Gratitude

Speaker 0:02

There are moments in our faith where words don't quite carry the weight of what we're trying to understand. For me, Good Friday is one of those moments. It's a day where everything looks like it's gone wrong. Where what should have been victory looks like defeat. Where the king is not crowned, but crucified. And yet we know there's more happening than what can be seen. That was true for Good Friday, and that's true in our lives today. Hi, my name is Tosha Williams, and if we haven't met before, I'm the founder and the executive director of the Family Disciple Me Ministry, and I'm also the co-founder along with my husband of Vanguard Church of Colorado Springs. I spend my days encouraging people to meet with God and then make him known in their everyday lives. During this season, I've been creating a number of podcast episodes in the background. All of these connect to something that the Family Disciple Me Ministry has been building and praying over for a long time. Very soon we'll be releasing the Family Disciple Me app, and I can't wait to put that into your hands. This is being created to help you walk more intentionally with Jesus and to help you lead others who are entrusted to you to do the very same thing. But in the meantime, during this holy sacred week, I don't want to rush past this moment. I want to give you something that God has given me, something for you to sit with, something that I'm sitting with, something for you to ponder that I've been pondering. Because over the years, I've found that sometimes poetry helps us step into this tension in a different way. It calls us to slow down. It lets us feel what's happening, not just think about it. This poem for me came out of sitting in this place, noticing this pattern of exchange, looking at the cross, not just at what happened, but at what happened instead. Because somehow through it all, God was not losing. He was accomplishing something far greater than anyone there could understand then, and I believe something far greater than any of us can understand even now. So I want to invite you into this, not just to listen, but to enter in, to let these words walk you to the cross and sit there for just a moment and consider its implications for your life today. This poem is a poem for Good Friday, and it's a poem that I call the Great Instead. Good Friday cries, The King is lost. Instead of throne, there stands the cross. Instead of robes, His body torn. Instead of crown, He wears the thorn. Instead of loyal, His friends all run. The reign of darkness has begun. Instead of praise, the King is mocked. Instead of honor, His body flogged. Instead of water, vile drink is dealt. (Then from His side the water spilt.) Instead of sun, the world goes dark. Instead of truth, lies hit their mark. Creation groans beneath the weight, the rocks are split, the earth now quakes. A mortal man— The king who died? Onlookers see him crucified. The Creator's voice is silent now. And heaven's breath seems paused somehow. The king is dead— but mortal there? "This must be God," the guard declares. Still, into tomb, all hope is cast, but earth will open, death will not last. For the final word, is God's alone. His promise given, our sins atoned. Instead of evil, the cross reversed, sin's stranglehold. God broke the curse. Instead of dark, here comes the light. God conquers sin and reveals what's right. The King still lives, and His people too. Hell is haunted, but heaven is true. Instead of ashes— beauty. Instead of sorrow— praise. Instead of weeping— glory. Instead of judgment— praise. For Sunday says, the King reigns still. The "Great Instead" proves He always will. Oh thank you, Heavenly Father, for the reality of the Great Instead, where You do the miraculous, turning darkness into light, taking everything that's wrong, and making it right for Your glory, for our good, and for the good of those that You've entrusted to us. In Your name, Jesus. Amen.