Common Sense Reborn

GOOD Friday!

³⁰When Jesus had tasted it, he said “It is finished!” Then He bowed His head and gave up His spirit. (John 19:30)

Blessed Good Friday Family! We have reached the beginning of the cosmic conclusion of Holy Week. It is ironic that for some on that fateful Friday, they believed that the crucifixion of Jesus marked the end. The religious elite that sought to end this radical Rabbi’s movement thought they had won when Jesus spoke His final words and “gave up” His spirit. The devil thought he had also won, that the Son of God had been ridiculed, beaten, scorned, and nailed to a Roman cross. And even Jesus’ faithful followers had thought they had lost, their beloved Messiah was dead, everything they believed in for the previous three years was blowing away in the wind off the hilltop of Golgotha. But that was not the end. For all the horror that occurred on that Friday afternoon, the end was just beginning.

I invite you to read every Gospel author’s account of Good Friday today. Picking up where we left off yesterday on Maundy Thursday, Jesus and His followers are discovered in the Garden of Gethsemane. Jesus is arrested in the middle of the night and rushed through a speedy and crooked trial, all done before the break of day. The Pharisees and Sadducees sought to sentence Jesus before His followers ever caught wind of what was happening. The ridiculousness of Jesus’ trial is painfully obvious as no one had the gall to take responsibility for sentencing the Miracle Maker. Pilate and Herod bounce Jesus back and forth before Pilate allows the crowd to decide Jesus’ fate. When the crowd (again, this group was mostly those who were aware of the plot that was unfolding, so the “religious elites” faithful fans) shouted for the murderer and revolutionary, Barabbas, to be spared over Jesus, Pilate washed his hands of the decision and gave Jesus over to the masses.

What happened next has been demonstrated over-and-over in Passion plays throughout the ages. Jesus is mocked, a crown of thorns placed on His head, and the long march to Golgotha Hill carrying His own cross began. Jesus suffered one of the worst forms of capitol punishment the Roman Empire had to offer, as He was nailed to a cross. Three large iron nails, driven through flesh and bone in His hands and through His feet. Jesus was hung on a tree for the world to see, and suffered a slow and agonizing death. Then came the obvious signs of how significant the moment Jesus’ spirit left Him truly was. Matthew writes:

⁵⁰Then Jesus shouted out again, and He released His spirit. ⁵¹At that moment the curtain in the sanctuary of the Temple was torn in two, from top to bottom. The earth shook, rocks split apart, ⁵²and tombs opened. The bodies of many godly men and women who had died were raised from the dead. ⁵³They left the cemetery after Jesus’ resurrection, went into the holy city of Jerusalem, and appeared to many people.

⁵⁴The Roman officer and the other soldiers at the crucifixion were terrified by the earthquake and all that had happened. They said, “This man truly was the Son of God!” (Matthew 27:50-54)

While only a few realized the gravity of what they had just done by killing the Son of God, only two in all of existence knew what was happening next: God and Jesus. While Jesus “gave up His spirit”, He did so because He knew what was to come. Jesus was to face death in a battle that very few think about, but one with the greatest consequences in all existence. As we will see over the next two days, Jesus wins the battle, and with His victory comes the salvation of mankind, the plan God had designed since the fall of Adam and Eve so many millennia before. So while some saw Friday as the victory for the wrong reasons (the death of Jesus, the end of His movement, the hiding of the Disciples), we know that the greatest victory was indeed won on that cross, as Jesus would not be dead for long, His movement was just beginning, and His disciples would reemerge to change the world.

If you want to read the Passion in their entirety, you can find them in Matthew Chapter 26:47-27:60; Mark 14:43-15:47; Luke 22:47-23:56; and John 18:1-19:42.

The song below by Phil Wickham continues to be my favorite song for Good Friday. It is a fitting reminder of where we are in the remembrance of Holy Week, that as dark a day as Friday was, do not lose heart, because Sunday is Coming.