Day 38 - Good Friday

Today's reading is from Mark 15.

Good Friday is the name we give to the day of Christ Jesus' crucifixion. It doesn't seem like a good day at all; but it is for us.

Jesus' arrest was sham. His trials before the Sanhedrin were based on one purpose - to justify killing him and getting rid of his influence over the population. Before Pilate he is submissive and even though Pilate doesn't know what to do with him, it all ends with Jesus being crucified.

What a horrendous picture Mark portrays: Mark 15:16-20 (NIV)
16 The soldiers led Jesus away into the palace (that is, the Praetorium) and called together the whole company of soldiers.
17 They put a purple robe on him, then twisted together a crown of thorns and set it on him.
18 And they began to call out to him, "Hail, king of the Jews!"
19 Again and again they struck him on the head with a staff and spit on him. Falling on their knees, they paid homage to him.
20 And when they had mocked him, they took off the purple robe and put his own clothes on him. Then they led him out to crucify him.

Scourging involved a flagrum - a which with long, leather tails...sometimes with tack like nails attached. It was meant to rip the flesh from the body of it's victim. The Romans were experts in the art of torture. The crown of thorns and the mock regal robe all meant to humiliate and cause intense pain and suffering.

They led Jesus with a cross of wooden beams to Golgotha - a hill of public torture just outside the city. Mark's gospel is brief and pointed. Two thieves are crucified with him. To the Romans Jesus is nothing but a public nuisance. The nails driven through the wrists separating the hand joint from the arm would have severely damaged the nerves, again for the purpose of intense pain. It also served the purpose of stopping the victim from being able to support himself while hanging. Jesus' body hung limp, his lungs filling with fluid.

Mark 15:33-34 (NIV)
33 At the sixth hour darkness came over the whole land until the ninth hour.
34 And at the ninth hour Jesus cried out in a loud voice, "Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?"--which means, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"

It is Noon, as we know it, the sixth hour and darkness settles over the whole land. The pain, suffering, torture are nothing compared to the abandonment Jesus felt in the Father's withdrawal. This suffering was his alone. There were no angels to surround and protect; no disciples to stop the proceedings, no miraculous intervention.

Mark 15:37 (NIV)
37 With a loud cry, Jesus breathed his last.

The deed was done. "It is finished", John tells us Jesus said. The cross was the brutal sacrifice of the Messiah, Jesus, for the sins of the world. Our sins, My sins, Your sins.

2 Corinthians 5:21 (NIV)
21 God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

For us, IT IS A GOOD FRIDAY. Thank You Jesus,

Peace,

If you're reading along in the-Bible-in-a-year with me, today's readings are in 2 Kings 6,7,8