What is good about “Good Friday”? This is the darkest day in history, Wall Street could have a million “Black Fridays” and it wouldn’t compare to the day the world killed its Saviour. The only thing Christians have to celebrate about this day is that we don’t have to work. Sure we know that it ends well and we’ll celebrate that on Sunday, but for a few moments would you walk with me in the shoes of the disciples, not knowing for sure what was going to come a couple days later.
Let’s begin in the Garden of Gethsemane after we have enjoyed our Passover meal, feeling very full and sleepy. Jesus is in great anguish, sweating blood as he prays, fighting the desire to be released from what he has to do, but everyone’s sleeping so we don’t really know what he’s going through.
He is utterly alone. Luke says: he prayed “Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me. Nevertheless, not my will, but yours, be done”. And there appeared an Angel from heaven, strengthening him. And being in agony he prayed more earnestly; and his sweat became like great drops of blood falling down to the ground.
We are awoken by Judas Iscariot coming with the army, and suddenly reality is beginning to set in as they take Jesus away. We keep our distance, but at dawn we watch the events of Good Friday unfold. It begins with some questioning of Jesus and he’s taken to Pilate who can’t find any guilt in him, but the angry Jewish mob outside is growing and becoming very agitated, yelling that they wanted Jesus crucified simply because he claimed to be the Son of God which he was.
The mob demands that Barabbas, a real criminal be released, as is the custom at the Passover, and Jesus take his place. Pilate chickens out and consents, but washes his hands of the whole thing. So he has Jesus flogged not just with a belt or whip but with a specially designed whip containing metal barbs designed to rip the flesh but not go so deep as to cause the person to bleed to death. Just excruciating pain. Do we care?
The soldiers are now feeding off the energy of the mob and begin humiliating Jesus, hitting him, spitting on him, and placing a painful crown of thorns on his head. Now blood, tears and sweat flow mingled down into his eyes. He can taste it on his lips. Then he has to carry his own cross on his raw skinless back, through town all the way out to Golgotha or the “place of the skull”.
Along the way he no doubt sees all his friends and the women who loved him weeping. Everyone followed the entourage to the hill and watched the soldiers hammer the spikes into his hands and feet. They had to hammer the spikes through this area of the wrist so that the weight of the body could be held. If they did it in this part of the hand the spikes would just rip out when they hung him. Make no mistake this was the most painful and humiliating death imaginable.
In this position hanging on the cross, it’s very difficult to breathe, so with every breath the prisoner would have to push up with his legs in order to get air into the lungs. Of course his feet have nails through them and this is the platform to push up on, not to mention the rough wood sliding up and down his recently flogged back each time he took a breath. Oh yeah, it’s about noon so it’s getting pretty hot and with the blood loss he is getting very thirsty. So they soak a sponge with wine and a narcotic to help ease the pain and speed up the stopping of the breathing, but Jesus wouldn’t take it because he wanted to be fully conscious for this momentous event.
Jesus saw his mother and the disciple whom he loved – John, and in essence he told them both that John is now your son, mother.
Through all of this Jesus forgives the sins of one of the prisoners and lets him know that he will be with Jesus in paradise, and he keeps praying that the Father would forgive all these people for they didn’t know what they were doing.
The sky grew black, not because of an eclipse (that was proven not to be possible at the time) but because God was spreading darkness over the place from noon to about three in the afternoon, there was a great earthquake, rocks were split and tombs were opened.
Finally Jesus yelled “Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani?” “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?” and he yielded up his spirit saying “Father into your hands I commit my Spirit”. You see he didn’t just die then, but for the first and only time in eternity, he was out of union with the Father for that moment because he bore the sins of the world upon which the Father cannot cast His eyes. He who knew no sin became sin. Do we care?
At that moment, the only good thing about that day occurred.
The giant fifty foot tall curtain in the temple was torn and all people were given access to the Holiest of Holies where only the high priest had been allowed once a year. The wind didn’t do this, that curtain was made of very strong thick fibers woven together, only God could have torn it like it was paper.
At that moment our sins were forgiven and every one who believes has complete access to God himself through Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit. A fact I pray our Catholic brothers and sisters one day realize. But you know what, that happened back in the city and likely no one even knew that the curtain had been torn until later, and even then it’s doubtful they knew the significance of it right away.
Well, it was also the day of preparation for the Sabbath so the Jews wanted the process to hurry up so they could eat. Sounds a little like church on Sunday morning heh? So they asked Pilate if the prisoner’s legs could be broken so they would suffocate quicker. The soldiers went ahead and broke the other two prisoner’s legs, but when they got to Jesus they found him already dead, so they just stuck a spear in his side to make sure.
Jesus was even in charge of the moment he died and in this, two Old Testament scriptures were fulfilled so that more people would believe. Psalm 22:14 “they divide my garments amoung them and for my clothing cast lots” and Psalm 34:20, “he keeps all his bones; not one of them is broken”. They didn’t break his legs.
Some people say “what’s the big deal, he knew what he going to do, he knew where he was going, he could have saved himself the torment.” But what they don’t understand is that beyond having a fully human body with the sensations of pain and all the emotions, the moment before his death was the excruciating part because he experienced separation from God for the first and only time.
And when He was separated, we got to sneak in there. We’re used to being separated from God because we don’t know any different, but when we experience heaven, only then will we know what it was like for Jesus. Jesus, God incarnate fully became one of us for a moment and it was excruciating. What does that say about us?
But there’s something that happened before all of this and I want to read it to you. We call it the high priestly prayer only found in John’s gospel, that Jesus prayed at the Last Supper on the night before his death. This is really the last prayer he says specifically to us his disciples before he goes off to fulfill his mission.
Please imagine with me now as I read it that you are in the upper room with Jesus and the disciples, because it was meant for all of us in this moment as much as it was for them. After comforting and telling his disciples that he has overcome the world… (Read the Priestly prayer John 17)
That’s the good news folks, if we never saw any other parts of the Bible, that prayer would sum it all up sufficiently. That prayer is just as real for us in this moment as it was in the upper room that night. Did you notice what His most common comments and requests were? That they are not of this world and that they may be one as He and the Father are one.
Three times he asks that we be perfectly one. This is the prayer of our dying Messiah who we profess faith in. That we not of the world and that we be perfectly one. And he says twice that this oneness will help others believe that the Father sent Jesus.
My friends, is this why the so much of the world, especially here in the west doesn’t believe? Because we have done a very poor job of being one? I encourage you to soak this Scripture into your pores, experience it as though Jesus is saying it to you. Understand every word. You will never be the same. And I pray that the church here in Killarney will never be the same.
Prayer
Father, we can’t imagine the grief you must have felt when your beloved Son cried out to you that day.
We also can’t imagine the strength, and dedication to you that Jesus had. Lord we can celebrate this Sunday because of what was to come after Jesus died.
We can thank you for what we have received through the work of Jesus, but Father, let us not forget what the purpose really was.
Not just to believe that it happened, but that it happened for a purpose. To transform us.
To make us able to do the work that Jesus began. Forgive me Father for just accepting the gift and not allowing the gift to make me what you want me to be.
Help me Father to make this so real in my heart that I will be disgusted with myself for not serving you with every ounce of my being. Oh Father don’t let us waste this gift.
The darkest day in history is over and now may we be your lights here on earth until we bask in the light of your glory because of Jesus. Amen
