Common Sense Reborn

Holy Week, Good Friday

³³At noon, darkness came over the whole land until three in the afternoon. ³⁴And at three in the afternoon Jesus cried out in a loud voice, “Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani?” (which means “My God, My God, why have you fosaken me?”)…³⁷With a loud cry, Jesus breathed His last. ³⁸The curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. ³⁹And when the centurion, who stood there in front of Jesus saw how He died, he said, “Surely this man was the Son of God!” (Mark 15:33-39)

We have arrived at Good Friday in our remembrance of Holy Week. The endless night of Maundy Thursday finally ends at 3 in the afternoon as Jesus breathed His last breath. Each Gospel writer has a different account of this moment. Matthew, Mark, and Luke all mention the three hours of darkness, but only Matthew includes the account of a great earthquake and tombs being rattled open. John is the only author to include the story of the Roman guard who pierced Jesus in the side with a spear, fulfilling the Old Testament from Zechariah 12:10, which reads: “They will look on me, the one they have pierced, and they will mourn for him as one mourns for an only child and grieve bitterly for him as one grieves for a firstborn son.”

Jesus had been mocked, beaten, scourged with a lead-tipped whip, forced to carry His own cross to Golgotha Hill, His hands and feet nailed to that cross before facing the excruciating torture of crucifixion. Jesus went through all that for me. And you. And every single person on this earth. No matter our faults, no matter our weaknesses, our shortcomings, Jesus took it all on the cross. That’s how much Jesus loved us. And as I mentioned yesterday, the last commandment Jesus left His disciples with was for them to love each other, with that same wonderous love. That same command is for you and me today; to love all people the way Jesus loves them. As you celebrate Easter this weekend, do your best to show that love to those around you, to show an earth-shaking, curtain-tearing love to all people. It is what Jesus did and does each and every day. It is our time now. It is time for us to rise up in love for our Risen King.