25 March 2005: Good Friday

Today the speaker in church talked not just about the death of Christ, but he also explained to us why it was so significant. For us now, we celebrate Good Friday because it was through this act that we were all saved. But during the time of Jesus, the cross was something everyone didn't want to be associated with. The jewish knew that cruxifiction on the cross was the greatest and worst punishment for only the worst criminals. In fact, the death sentence in our country would be nothing compared to what went on then... Let me try to recall some of the facts...

Cruxifiction didn't focus on just the death of a criminal. It was about giving them the greatest torture and pain before they died. It was very physical. Let's think about the torture Jesus went through. Besides being spat at (that was probably already the most tame), he was ridiculed when the romans purposely put on a purple cloak on him (colour of royalty), gave him a staff (kings of that time usually had a staff with them) and put a crown of thorns on his head (and I mean, really really sharp thorns, not fake ones). The people then purposely shouted something like "Hail, the king of the jews" before they used the same staff to whack him over and over again. If this wasn't enough, he was also struck in the face brutally, and they hit his head very hard, driving the thorns into his body and causing as much damage as they could. Oh, and their fun hadn't stopped. Jesus was whipped repeatedly too, but the whips had nails attached to them. If you imagine, if you pierce someone with a nail and want to remove it again quickly so that you can pierce him a second time, you would inevitable drag the nail inside the body and cause very deep wounds. That's what happened to Jesus. Because he was whipped over and over again, the nails bore severe wounds on his body.

Criminals who were to be crucified had to bear the burden of carrying the very cross they would be hung on, and because the Jewish considered Jerusalem too holy to execute criminals, they did it outside the city walls, but at a place where it was bustling with activity so that people would come and make fun of the criminals or scorn them. However, Jesus was beaten up so badly that night, that he had absolutely not enough strength to carry his cross. He just kept continuing to bleed and suffer immense pain. Outside the walls of Jerusalem, the cross was laid on the ground, and Jesus was laid on top of it. His arms were stretched out to the max, before the Roman soldiers drove long nails through his hands and into the wooden cross. If this was all that they did, Jesus' flesh would probably have been ripped off and he would have dropped from the cross, maybe still alive. But the Romans didn't want him to be let off so easily. They had everything carefully crafted. The tied his feet onto the cross as well and added a wooden piece in the centre so that the criminal could not get off the cross, but had to hang there and endure all the torture before they finally died. The horrific scene is probably very well shown in The Passion of Christ. It was probably the closest you can get to see how Jesus really died.

Here comes the powerful message. Hanging on the cross and enduring countless amounts of pain, a crucified criminal would usually curse and swear at the Romans who did this to them. All they would think of is the poor state they were in, and how unfair it was to themsleves. But, when Jesus went through this experience, there was no cursing, no swearing, and yes, at that moment, because every sin that was committed by every man and every sin that was to be committed was placed on Jesus, God had left Jesus to bear everything, all the sin and shame, all the pain and torture. Yet the first words Jesus said was, "forgive them Lord, for they do not know what they are doing"? How could he say that? Here they were, inflicting on Him pain that is probably beyond anything any human can bear, and he was thinking of them? He wanted to forgive them? And the other people he thought about was his mother, Mary. Imagine him in complete agony, and yet he wanted to make sure that his mother was well taken care of before he died. He entrusted her to one of his followers, John.

The final moments: The moment Jesus had taken upom himself everything, and paid the full price for the salvation of all of us, he said "it is finished" and God took him back. Jesus' physical body hung dead, but he was finally back with God agian...However, this is not the end, If the story of Christ ended here, he would just have been a great hero of many people in the past. What makes him God? Why is he any different from the "main character" of other religions? That's the Easter story :).......