Headed to
Easter – Good Friday
The
characters in the Easter story offer a mixed bag of fickled, evil, corrupt and regretful.
Jesus’
disciples seem largely clueless. They
heard the words, but the whole truth had not fully sunk in. They still didn’t get it.
The
leaders of the Jewish inner circle – evil, evil, evil. Their system was being threatened, their integrity challenged, and they were not going to stand for that. No, not at all.
Judas
showed regret. He tried to return the
30-pieces of silver. It didn’t
work. He couldn’t back out now. So, he backed out the only way he knew
how. He hanged himself.
Pilate
was the weak one. He was a poor excuse
for a governor. He would do anything to
please the masses. And he tried. He also tried to give Jesus a chance for a
rebuttal. Christ never spoke in his own
defense, and Pilate was stuck.
He
finally struck a bargain and offered Barabbas in exchange for Jesus. The crowd was pleased and Pilate was off the
hook, in time to avoid a riot from the out-of-control crowd.
He
had Jesus flogged, then turned him over to be crucified.
The
mob, including a good contingent or soldiers, stripped him and put a scarlet
robe on him. They put a crown of thorns
on his head, mocked him, spat upon him, and just had a sporting good time at
his expense for a while.
Finally,
after tiring of this, they put his own clothes on him and led him away to be
crucified.
He
was forced to carry his own cross, the instrument of execution, but because of
the beating and lack of food, Christ was physically weak and exhausted. After stumbling under the weight of the
cross, a man named Simon from Cyrene was pulled in to carry the cross for
him.
They
led him to Golgotha – the Place of the Skull.
As
he hung there, on this ‘Good Friday’, the soldiers gambled for his robe. And finally, they settled down and watched
this man of sorrows die an agonizing death.
The
sign over the head of The Christ added an ironic twist to this saga. It read, “This is Jesus, the King of the
Jews.”
And
his cross was juxtaposed between two criminals.
A
steady parade of people came by to say their parting words to him as he hung
there. They were not pleasant words, for
they spat, and cursed, mocked and ridiculed this righteous man.
Around
noon, darkness came upon the land till about three in the afternoon.
And
he cried out with a loud voice, “Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani? The interpretation means: “My God, my God,
why have you forsaken me?”
And
after a few minutes, he uttered his last
words – IT IS FINISHED!
You
should have seen what happened next.
The
curtain in the temple that separated the Holy of Holies from the rest of the
temple area was torn in two – top to bottom.
The
earth shook with a terrific quake, rocks were split, tombs opened, and many
bodies of the saints who had already died were raised up. (See Matthew 27:52-53)
One
of the soldiers, a Centurion, who was terrified at all that was happening,
said, “Surely, this man was God’s Son.!”
Now
remember this was Friday. The Jewish Sabbath
was the next day.
Joseph
from Arimathea, came and took the body of Christ and laid him in his own
freshly hewn tomb. He wrapped the body
in a clean linen cloth, and rolled a giant stone over the entrance.
And
this ends Friday – Good Friday, as we have come to call it in the Christian
Faith.
And
this is not the end. Hope is on the horizon.
Hope Encouragement Inspiration
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