For Christians, Good Friday is one of the most sacred and significant days of the year – the day their savior, Jesus Christ, sacrificed himself to atone for all of mankind’s sins.

“It’s good for us. It wasn’t good for Christ,” said Jesse Holt, executive pastor at Christ the King Church in Oxford.

“It was definitely good for us that He was willing to lay His life down in a pretty extreme and brutal way to show (us) that He loves the world, that He loves people, no matter what they’ve done, no matter what they choose to do.”

To celebrate this act of love, the Oxford-Orion Ministers Association (OOMA) is inviting everyone to attend a community Good Friday service on April 14 at Oxford United Methodist Church (21 E. Burdick St.) in the village.

The service will begin at noon.

OOMA is a loose-knit group of local pastors that’s been meeting and working together since the 1990s. The group currently has about 10 active churches and coordinates community services for the National Day of Prayer, Thanksgiving and Good Friday.

Good Friday commemorates Christ’s crucifixion by the Romans, a 1st-century event that Christians believe led to His resurrection from the dead two days later on what is now known as Easter.

Holt will be delivering the sermon at this community service. His message will focus on how “the cross is a choice.”

“Jesus chose the cross – he chose to go to the cross and die for our sins” explained Holt, a 1993 Oxford High School graduate. “He did this as one of the greatest acts of kindness. The Scripture says a great friend is one who is willing to lay down his life and Jesus is that, our great friend.”

Two thousand years later, “believing in the cross” and all that it represents and promises “is also a choice” that people have to make in their daily lives, he explained.

Holt believes Good Friday gets overlooked these days.

“I think we’ve created a secular culture where we now fit religion into our schedule instead of scheduling our (lives) around holidays,” he said. “It’s the same with (attending church on) Sunday. We no longer make it a priority. I think Good Friday is pretty much (treated) the same. People are still working. People’s lives still go on.

“As we get more and more secular in our thoughts and in our practices, it doesn’t have the same depth, the same meaning that it used to have. It’s just another Friday that happens to be before a holiday.”

Good Friday provides a good opportunity for people to be more “introspective” than usual and “at the very least, reflect on their own humanity,” in Holt’s opinion.

“Who am I as a person? What is my purpose in life? What is the meaning of my being here? Am I just an evolutionary conglomeration or does my life actually have meaning and purpose?”

Holt uses his sermons to encourage personal reflection and inspire people to seek answers for themselves.

To him, ministers and pastors are often “too quick to give people the answer we think” is right.

“In reality, (for) people who find the answer on their own, (for) people who come to things on their own, it has a lot more meaning. It’s lasting,” Holt said. “When people leave my sermons . . . I hope they walk away saying, ‘I really need to think about this. I need to stop and ponder what was said.’”

As part of the community Good Friday service, a collection will be taken to benefit the Oxford-Orion FISH food pantry.

FISH provides free groceries to people in need living in Oxford, Addison and Orion townships along with a small portion of Oakland Township.

Holt believes it’s important for churches to remember their purpose is more than just gathering people together on Sundays, it’s about giving and rallying around organizations, like FISH, that help others in need.