Today is Good Friday, when Christians around the world reflect on the arrest, trial, and execution of Jesus Christ. In the Christian worldview, it’s one of the most important dates in all of history, trumped in significance only by the glorious events of Resurrection Day a few days later.

On the surface, the story of Good Friday describes something historically unremarkable (although certainly terrible): the unjust martyrdom of a visionary. Certainly many religious leaders and idealists have met undeserved death at the hands of brutal establishments throughout history, all the way up to the present day. But as you read the Gospel accounts of Jesus’ final hours before crucifixion, you cannot escape the sense that this is different. This is injustice on a cosmic scale; this is humanity literally spitting in the face of its loving Creator.

But we can read this story without despairing because we know how it ultimately ends. The God who works all things for the good will bring unimaginable glory and grace out of even the murder of his own son.

Have you read the story of Good Friday recently? So much happened on Good Friday that it’s easier to just read it in its entirety rather than isolate the individual stories. It’s told from four different perspectives in the Bible: Matthew 26:47-27:61, Mark 14:42-15:47, Luke 22:47-23:56, and John 18-19.

It’s a bleak story, but we know a truth that puts even this in perspective: Easter is coming.