Good Friday

After the events of last night, one might think that Jesus deserves a break.

Not to be. Today we celebrate Good Friday, which is good for those of us who know why it’s good. There was little good to see about it on the first Good Friday. Those living it were having a very bad day.

Beginning with Matthew 27,  we see how Jesus’ morning begins … with a trial before the Roman governor Pontius Pilate. When Jesus refused to answer any of the charges against Him, Pilate knew that he was in the presence of someone special. The various Gospel accounts talk about just how Pilate reacted to this. For now, I leave it at this … Jesus had no need to play into the trial.  He knew what was going to happen … He had to be crucified, and for that to happen, He had to be tried and sentenced. There was no reason for Him to take part in the formality, the useless spectacle, that was His trial.

Of course, He also knew that His trial was baseless. He had committed no wrong, and the evidence against Him was almost-entirely perjury. The rest was failure to understand. The accusers among the Pharisees, of course, were concerned about his “blasphemous” claim to be the Son of God. The Romans were not particularly concerned about Jewish religious questions, though, and it had to be the Romans who sentenced Him to die.

Strangely, it was participation in the Crucifixion that made Herod, the king in occupied Jerusalem, the friend of Pilate, the Roman governor (Luke 23:12).  There is more to say about this, but this is not the time. Suffice to say … the heretic and the agnostic are natural allies. When they come face to face with the Truth, they will show their true colors, as agents of lies.

Herod washed his hands of the situation, as if he could absolve himself of responsibility for the death sentence he would issue. A politician, if ever there was one.

Amazingly, we sometimes manage to sanitize the idea of crucifixion. There is nothing neat or clean about crucifixion. Jesus was beaten, naked. His clothes were stripped from His body and split by the guards, casting lots. Their only purpose was to cause pain. They meant to cause Him so much suffering that it could not be endured.

Behind it all, of course, was Satan.

There are those who believe that Satan wanted Jesus to die and stay dead. I think that Satan had a much better understanding of the Scriptures than that. He knew that if Jesus died, then salvation could be had. I’m convinced that this was much more akin to the forty days in the wilderness that Jesus spent letting Satan tempt Him, shortly after His baptism by John at the River Jordan. Satan had to stop the Crucifixion. He desperately wanted Jesus to stop it from happening. Satan knew what Jesus’ disciples did not … and he knew that his defeat was sealed if Jesus stayed on His assigned path.

Therefore, it’s safe to say that no human being has ever suffered the way Jesus did that day. The inestimable cruelty that had to have been shown to Him has to have been beyond imagination. All the while, He could have ended it.

At any moment, He could have struck dead every man who hit Him with a lash. He didn’t have to carry a cross down the road, yelled at and mocked. He could have destroyed Jerusalem and the entire Roman Empire if He had so desired. Instead, He consented to endure the unendurable. The easiest thing in the world would have been to end the pain for Himself, end the suffering, and wipe out His tormentors. Earth’s Creator could have been its destroyer, at no cost to Himself.

Surely, the suffering must have been all the worse for knowing that He didn’t have to endure it. Not unlike Tantalus of mythology, whose hunger and thirst were multiplied by the branch that moved out of his reach and the water that dropped as he tried to drink, Jesus knew all the time that He could have ended the day with a breath, with a thought, with less than a gesture. As the flesh was ripped from His back by Roman lashes and His blood ran, He knew that all He had to do was wish it for it to be over.

Instead, He suffered. He endured. He cried, He bled, He wept, He died.

Eventually, He came to the hill Calvary, to the place where He was meant to die. Not only would He be lifted up on a cross, nails holding Him in place, but He would continue to be mocked. The Devil himself was desperate. As recounted in Matthew 27:39-44 (NIV; courtesy of BibleGateway.com) –

39Those who passed by hurled insults at him, shaking their heads 40and saying, “You who are going to destroy the temple and build it in three days, save yourself! Come down from the cross, if you are the Son of God!”

41In the same way the chief priests, the teachers of the law and the elders mocked him. 42“He saved others,” they said, “but he can’t save himself! He’s the King of Israel! Let him come down now from the cross, and we will believe in him. 43He trusts in God. Let God rescue him now if he wants him, for he said, ‘I am the Son of God.’ ” 44In the same way the robbers who were crucified with him also heaped insults on him.

Satan knew the catastrophe that would occur if Jesus died on that cross. He tried to provoke Jesus into freeing Himself. He knew that it had to happen, or else he was doomed. The passersby shouted abuse, and the corrupt chief priests were there., calling to Him, trying to bait Him, reminding Him that He had the power to come down.

With a thought, He could have come down from the cross and put them up, if He had so desired. It was only His love for the rest of the world that kept Him there. Only Jesus’ devotion to His people kept Him on that cross, when He could have — and deservedly so — been free to go.

Instead, He suffered a terrible death.  We now call the day Good Friday, but it was anything but at the time. Jesus’ mother watched Him on the cross, and His disciples were lost. They did not understand what was happening. Although Jesus knew what was happening, He knew all of it … He knew what He was going to endure, and that He didn’t have to put up with it.

Greater love has no man that to give his life for a friend.

Jesus, though, has love enough to give His life, to suffer torture beyond imagining, and to do it all while He had the power to end it.