Good Friday 2014

Then the governor's soldiers took Jesus into the Praetorium and gathered the whole company of soldiers around him. They stripped him and put a scarlet robe on him, and then twisted together a crown of thorns and set it on his head. They put a staff in his right hand and knelt in front of him and mocked him. "Hail, king of the Jews!" they said. They spit on him, and took the staff and struck him on the head again and again.  After they had mocked him, they took off the robe and put his own clothes on him. Then they led him away to crucify him. From the sixth hour until the ninth hour darkness came over all the land.  About the ninth hour, Jesus cried out in a loud voice, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"  And when Jesus had cried out again in a loud voice, he gave up his spirit. At that moment the curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. 

From Matthew 27 

Good Friday.


All I can think about is that he knew what was coming.  He knew his friends would betray him.  He knew they would leave him all alone in the garden of Gethsemane.  He knew the crowd would strip him, spit on him, strike him.  He knew there would be a crown of thorns on his head, nails in his hands, pain, pain, so much pain. 


Hours of pain.


He walked toward it.  He didn’t flinch.  He didn’t falter.  He knew what was coming and he went there to die.


He knew God’s will and he fulfilled it. 


He was the perfect lamb, without blemish.  The perfect man completing the perfect plan.  And he hung on that cross in my place, and in yours.


Good Friday.


Grace Friday.


Grace . . .


Thank you, Jesus.

I recently learned something about the cross, and it got me thinking.  (You’re wondering what doesn’t get me thinking, aren’t you?)J

In 2013, at least in the Bible belt where I reside, the cross is all over the place.  People have them hanging in their houses, stuck to the back of their cars, on their belt buckles.  They can be found on thank-you cards and picture frames and decorative plates, on cell phone covers and t-shirts and coffee mugs, on women’s earrings and necklaces and bracelets. The cross is a mainstream symbol these days – an instant declaration of one’s choice to follow Jesus.

But back in Jesus’ day . . . you know, when travelling by donkey and eating locusts weren’t quite so taboo . . . the cross was not a go-to decorative object.  For the people that lived two-thousand years ago, a cross had no positive connotation whatsoever.  It would be like someone showing up for a girls’ night out wearing a vile of poison around their necks, or hanging an electric chair on the wall in their foyer, or writing in a notepad with a noose on the cover.  Are you feeling me here, folks?  When Jesus was alive, the cross was a tool of destruction used to crucify people who had committed crimes.  When Jesus was alive, the cross was ugly.  

Interesting, isn’t it, that before Jesus became a Savior, he was a carpenter.  Carpenters take trees and make them into dining room tables that cost thousands of dollars (on clearance) at Restoration Hardware.  Carpenters take trees and make them into chairs and cabinets and beds and houses.  Carpenters take uninteresting pieces of wood, plain and primitive, and turn them into masterpieces of all kinds. 

And Jesus . . . Jesus took the cross, something dark and dirty and disgusting . . . and made it beautiful.   

Don’t you think He can do the same to you and me?