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It’s called Good Friday and all over the world, people are getting ready. In the past under what I would call normal circumstances, we see many Good Friday services that have different emphasis.
But if you’ve grown up in church, we all know the story. Jesus’ sham of a trial, Pilate washes his hands of the matter. They release a known violent criminal, all so they can crucify Christ upon the cross. Jesus speaks and says significant things from the cross, but in the end it’s nothing that anyone does to Him that causes His death. The Bible tells us that He willingly gives up His spirit.
Because it was almost time for the sabbath to start, the people asked Pilate to have those hanging legs broken to speed up the deaths of the men being crucified. You see crucifixion kills, not because of blood loss or trauma, it kills because of the position the people are put in physically.
As I understand it, in crucifixion the legs are bent with one foot placed over the top of the other and nailed to the upright with a large spike. It’s put there so that the one being crucified can find relief from the process of death momentarily by pushing on the spike. You can relieve the pressure put on the chest and lungs created by the position of the arms, which are nailed on the cross beam allowing breath to be taken in between the times that one could muster the strength and willpower to push up on their nailed feet.
At this point, the lungs begin to fill with fluid, and in essence the person dies from asphyxiation. You drown from the inside, from the fluid filling your lungs. If you break their legs, they can’t push up to breathe and they die quicker – they drown quicker.
The Bible tells us that when the soldiers went to break their legs, to cause death quicker, they got to Jesus and He was already dead. The soldier pierced His side to prove this and blood and fluid (water) flowed from his chest.
John 19:38-42 (NIV) Later, Joseph of Arimathea asked Pilate for the body of Jesus. Now Joseph was a disciple of Jesus, but secretly because he feared the Jewish leaders. With Pilate’s permission, he came and took the body away. He was accompanied by Nicodemus, the man who earlier had visited Jesus at night. Nicodemus brought a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about seventy-five pounds. Taking Jesus’ body, the two of them wrapped it, with the spices, in strips of linen. This was in accordance with Jewish burial customs. At the place where Jesus was crucified, there was a garden, and in the garden a new tomb, in which no one had ever been laid. Because it was the Jewish day of Preparation and since the tomb was nearby, they laid Jesus there.
There a couple of things here that I’m not certain we are fully aware of. Simply because we do not understand the customs of the Passover, sabbath, and how death was viewed back then.
First – do we understand all of the parts of this? It was a special sabbath, because it was the sabbath of the Passover. When we look here, we notice that all of this started on the sixth day of the week. It was actually the day before the sabbath which is Thursday sundown.
Jesus last day on earth alive, as the sun set over Jerusalem starts Thursday evening. It’s that evening when Judas is sent out to do what must be done. And now everything in the Gospel story is focused on Christ’s suffering and death. They place Him in the tomb all before sunset on Friday. Why – because it’s the sixth day and it all has to be done before the seventh day.
Now let’s look at this for just a moment, the sixth day is the same day that humanity was given life in the beginning – the day that God created and breathed into humanity.
Genesis 2:7 (NIV) Then the Lord God formed a man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.
So on that sixth day, God breathes into humanity a special breath, the breath of life that causes humanity to be different from the rest of the creation. Humanity becomes living beings different from other created things. It’s on this sixth day that humanity is given life.
And now, fast forward in history, on this sixth day there is suffering and death. The death of the Messiah is all done on the sixth day. And the plan of the redemption of the human race is coming to its apex, Jesus dies for our sins - for our guilt for our fall.
Here’s another thing, not many of us go to a cemetery to look for hope – except this is where we Christians find hope, in the empty tomb! A cemetery is a place of death and loss and grief. And yet, we find hope in an empty grave. It’s because our logic is backwards to the kingdom.
Matthew 16:24-25 (NIV) Then Jesus said to his disciples, “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will find it.
That’s why we must come to a place of death and loss to find our hope and future. Only those who come to the place of the end can enter into a new beginning.
And that begs the question, what in our lives must end? Whatever it is we can bring it into this tomb today and wait – we wait for the new to begin.
Today – there is no song at the end, only silence – heartbreak – sorrow… There will be no devotion tomorrow, it’s a special sabbath that I believe we need to understand a bit better. The void and silence when Jesus was in the grave on that sabbath. The despair that the Disciples experienced on that sabbath. Jesus descends to hell and takes possession of the keys to Death, Hell, and the Grave…His end is our beginning. But it wasn’t until the first day of the next week, that we see the FirstFruits of the resurrection… Today is quiet, full of sorrow and grief, but remember – Sunday is coming.