The story that we remember
each year on Good Friday is the story of Christ’s death—the transition in Holy
Week from the celebration of Palm Sunday and the intimacy of Maundy Thursday to
the abandonment and suffering of God on the Cross on Good Friday.
It is a familiar story, but one that should never become so familiar that we’re incapable of being moved by it again… and again…and again. So, this year, consider again the story of Christ for us and for you, from the Gospel of Mark, chapter 15, verses 16-39 after Pilate has just given Jesus over to be crucified:
16 Then the soldiers led him into the courtyard of the palace (that is, the governor’s headquarters); and they called together the whole cohort. 17 And they clothed him in a purple cloak; and after twisting some thorns into a crown, they put it on him. 18 And they began saluting him, “Hail, King of the Jews!” 19 They struck his head with a reed, spat upon him, and knelt down in homage to him. 20 After mocking him, they stripped him of the purple cloak and put his own clothes on him. Then they led him out to crucify him.
The Crucifixion of Jesus
21 They compelled a passer-by, who was coming in from the country, to carry his cross; it was Simon of Cyrene, the father of Alexander and Rufus. 22 Then they brought Jesus to the place called Golgotha (which means the place of a skull). 23 And they offered him wine mixed with myrrh; but he did not take it. 24 And they crucified him, and divided his clothes among them, casting lots to decide what each should take.
25 It was nine o’clock in the morning when they crucified him. 26 The inscription of the charge against him read, “The King of the Jews.” 27 And with him they crucified two bandits, one on his right and one on his left. 29 Those who passed by derided him, shaking their heads and saying, “Aha! You who would destroy the temple and build it in three days, 30 save yourself, and come down from the cross!” 31 In the same way the chief priests, along with the scribes, were also mocking him among themselves and saying, “He saved others; he cannot save himself. 32 Let the Messiah, the King of Israel, come down from the cross now, so that we may see and believe.” Those who were crucified with him also taunted him.
The Death of Jesus
33 When it was noon, darkness came over the whole land until three in the afternoon. 34 At three o’clock Jesus cried out with a loud voice, “Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani?” which means, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” 35 When some of the bystanders heard it, they said, “Listen, he is calling for Elijah.” 36 And someone ran, filled a sponge with sour wine, put it on a stick, and gave it to him to drink, saying, “Wait, let us see whether Elijah will come to take him down.” 37 Then Jesus gave a loud cry and breathed his last. 38 And the curtain of the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom. 39 Now when the centurion, who stood facing him, saw that in this way he breathed his last, he said, “Truly this man was God’s Son!”
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What if we were those first followers and all we had was the story of Jesus’ death?
Would we still call this day “good”?
They put a crown of thorns on Jesus’ head.
They struck him and spat on him.
They beat him so badly he couldn’t walk under the weight of his cross.
They mocked and taunted him.
Then they crucified him, driving nails into his body to hold him to a cross… an act that Cicero called, the “most cruel and horrifying punishment” reserved for slaves, criminals, and anyone the Roman empire wanted to not only kill, but publicly shame as they put them to death. And it was meant for torture. They would beat someone before nailing them on a cross, but they wouldn’t sever any major arteries… so the one who was hung would suffer pain, but would die slowly from exhaustion, or suffocation, or a heart failure.
Yes, Jesus
was raised from the dead. Yes, he was
resurrected and glorified. But first, he
suffered... and suffered terribly.
Even in
the midst of this, we see people trying to take away Jesus’ pain, or get him to
take it away himself. At some point,
someone offers him wine mixed with myrrh, which was a first-century narcotic
meant to deaden pain, but Jesus doesn’t take it. Then there are soldiers and people passing by
and the priests and scribes who taunt him to take himself down from the cross—to
bypass the suffering—but he doesn’t do it.
And some others even assume Jesus calls out for Elijah to come take him
away, because they can’t imagine him dying on a cross—a death that Paul
called “a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles” because it was
written in Scripture that “anyone hung on a tree is under God’s curse.” Still, he stays. And he laments, as a righteous man who is
made to suffer. “Eloi, Eloi, lema
sabachthani?”—“My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”—is the first line
of Psalm 22. It’s a psalm of lament to
God.
“My God,
my God, why have you forsaken me?
Why are you so far from helping me, from the words of my groaning?
O my God,
I cry by day, but you do not answer;
and by night, but find no rest…
scorned by others and despised by the people.
All who
see me mock at me;
they make mouths at me, they shake their heads;
‘Commit
your cause to the Lord; let him deliver—
let him rescue the one in whom he delights!’…
and all my bones are out of joint;
My heart is like wax;
it is melted within my breast…
My hands and feet have shriveled;
I can count all my bones.
They stare
and gloat over me;
They divide my clothing among themselves,
for my clothing they cast lots.”
Jesus
claims this lament for himself. He is
the righteous one who suffers unjustly.
And by the end, the Psalm reminds us that redemption will follow:
“All you
who fear the Lord, praise him!
All you offspring of Jacob, glorify him…
For he did not despise or abhor
the affliction of the afflicted;
he did not hide his face from me,
but heard when I cried to him…
To him,
indeed, shall all who sleep in the earth bow down;
before him shall bow all who go down to the dust,
and I shall live for him.”
Jesus is
not unaware, even in this moment of his death, that God will be glorified in
the end. But that doesn’t mean he skips
the suffering. Even knowing that there’s
light at the end of the tunnel—that God will redeem even the worst of human
brokenness and evil—doesn’t take away the pain.
For some
unknown reason, it was in this moment, when Jesus cried out and then
died on the cross that the Roman centurion who stood before him said, “Truly,
this man was God’s son!” This is the
Savior God sent to us.
Take a
minute and find that moment in your own life… that dark night of the soul...
that feeling of forsakenness…
Maybe it was losing someone you loved—a parent, a child, a spouse, a friend.
Maybe you were the one in the hospital gown being told by a doctor that your body wasn’t working like it’s supposed to.
Maybe it was finding out you lost a job, or lost a home.
Maybe it was battling the temptation of an addiction.
Maybe it was a moment of loneliness or emptiness in this last year when you were cut off from loved ones because of a deadly disease.
Maybe it was simply a moment of overwhelm and desperation in the otherwise “ordinariness” of life.
It’s okay
to sit in the space of that pain.
They divide my clothing among themselves,
for my clothing they cast lots.”
All you offspring of Jacob, glorify him…
For he did not despise or abhor
the affliction of the afflicted;
he did not hide his face from me,
but heard when I cried to him…
before him shall bow all who go down to the dust,
and I shall live for him.”
Maybe it was losing someone you loved—a parent, a child, a spouse, a friend.
Maybe you were the one in the hospital gown being told by a doctor that your body wasn’t working like it’s supposed to.
Maybe it was finding out you lost a job, or lost a home.
Maybe it was battling the temptation of an addiction.
Maybe it was a moment of loneliness or emptiness in this last year when you were cut off from loved ones because of a deadly disease.
Maybe it was simply a moment of overwhelm and desperation in the otherwise “ordinariness” of life.
And
I’d like to propose that even this—this moment of deepest despair—can be called
good.
We know that Christ, on Good Friday,
suffered for us so that we could be saved from our sin and be made right
with God. But Christ, on Good Friday, also suffered with us. And in crying out, “My God, my God, why
have you forsaken me?” he gives us permission to feel our pain… to name
it, to lament it with our entire being, and to know that even in the worst
of it, he is Emmanuel—God with us.
Maybe we don’t always have to just
“make it through.” Sometimes we can just
be right where we are… in the midst of terrible suffering.
And even
if we never got to Resurrection Sunday, we would still have a God
hanging next to us on our cross who could say to us in that darkness, “I am
right here with you. I know your
pain. I have been mocked. I have been beaten. I have felt utterly forsaken. And I went through all of it just so
that I could be here, in this moment with you, to tell you that you are not
alone. You will never be alone.”
Thanks be to God.
*If you would like to watch the live
service that was streamed on Facebook, you can find it HERE.
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