A GOOD Friday Reflection from the Pastors

(This year we will not gather in the sanctuary for Good Friday worship. Instead, in this very strange time of a global pandemic – a unique season of shadows, terror, sadness, loneliness, and death for so many – we want to remind you of the horror and tragedy of one single day and one single death that have given shape and strength and hope to your own life and to so many others, even in these troubled times. We call this single day and death “GOOD” because the horrible death of Jesus on a cross was ultimately God’s victory over sin, death, and evil… and it is our salvation. To the mystery of his own undeserved suffering, Jesus brings the deeper mystery of unmerited love. May you have humble gratitude, empowered living, and persevering hope – even in this time.)

Jesus had been sentenced to die by the Roman courts, sentenced to die by crucifixion outside the city walls of Jerusalem. One more crucifixion wouldn’t bother the soldiers. It was all in a day’s work. The execution was scheduled for midday. The Romans always planned for broad daylight, because they wanted the condemned person to be absolutely humiliated just before death; and they wanted crowds to see the power of the state, its power to kill and the agony it could inflict. It was intended to deliver the ultimate degradation to the condemned and the ultimate warning to others. Romans sometimes called it “torture fit only for slaves.” It was a public death reserved only for the worst criminals and for traitors to the Roman Empire’s authority. The Romans were professionals at conducting crucifixions, did them by thousands throughout the Empire, kept detailed records of them in their history books. One more execution wouldn’t bother the soldiers. It was all in a day’s work.

If it happened as at other Roman crucifixions, the Roman soldiers whipped Jesus thirty-nine lashes across the back. It was not a pretty sight, flesh ripped open to form deep streams of flowing blood. Then the soldiers gave him a long wooden bar, about six feet long. Most Roman crosses of execution were shaped like the capital letter “T”. The long vertical post was driven into the ground. The person being executed would be forced to carry only the horizontal top to the place of execution. It would nevertheless have been a heavy piece of wood, perhaps 40 – 100 pounds, especially burdensome after the whipping. And by that time Jesus had also been beaten and insulted and spat upon by the members of the Sanhedrin (the Jewish High Council), slapped and beaten and mocked by the Roman soldiers, and pained by a crown of thorns pressed into his head. Jesus was a wounded and already suffering man.

After receiving those thirty-nine lashes, Jesus and two other criminals scheduled for that day were tied to their wooden cross beam and forced to carry it through the narrow, winding streets of Jerusalem to the Place of the Skull, called Golgotha, which was just outside and a refuse heap. It was about a ten-minute walk from the place where Jesus was sentenced to the place he was executed. It was a ten-minute walk if there were no crowds crushing against one another and if you had not been badly whipped and deprived of rest and if you didn’t have to carry the wooden beam and if you weren’t making your way to your place of execution.

Once there, Jesus was stripped naked, the crossbar was placed on the top of the upright vertical beam, and he was tied by ropes around and beneath his arms to the beam so that he wouldn’t fall off the cross. His body was lifted onto the cross and a large and heavy crude iron spike 7-10 inches long was driven through each wrist. His lower body was twisted to one side, his feet were placed one on top of the other, turned sideways against the cross, and a third spike was driven through both heels. There was a partial seat, a small piece of board right below his buttocks. He could rest on this by allowing his torso to slump, with painful results. The weight of his sinking body forced his knees to bend sharply and stretched out his upraised arms to an unnatural extent.

Jesus hung there, stark naked. The watchers made fun of him. There was no way he could control his bodily functions. There was no way he could get rid of the flies or wipe sweat from his eyes. There was no way he could get down. In that strangely contorted, stretched, and almost sitting position on the cross, he could breathe in, but he could not sufficiently relax the muscles of his rib cage to breathe out. Thus, to exhale, he had to push himself up, using mainly his legs. In time, overcome by weakness, he would not be able to raise himself for another breath. Most victims died of suffocation as their lungs collapsed. Sleepless and without nourishment, stripped and whipped, taunted and jeered, nailed up and stretched out and struggling so hard to exhale, some condemned persons fought off death and endured the prolonged agony for two or more days, perhaps as many as four. But others died sooner, in just three or four hours. It was common for insects to burrow into the open wounds or the eyes, ears, and nose of the helpless and dying victims, and birds of prey would also tear at these sites. Sometimes the legs were shattered beneath the knees to prevent the stretching, to limit the exhaling, and to hasten death. Sometimes the dying person was pierced in the side with a sword or spear to also help hurry the execution along.

And, in the end, the victim was quite dead. Often, the victim was pierced through the heart with a sword or a spear just to be certain of death. Often, the corpse was left on the cross to rot away in the hot sun and to be devoured by predatory animals… and to be a ghastly warning to anyone who might consider testing Roman power. But families or friends could legally seek permission to remove and bury the body.

Joseph from the town in Judea named Arimathea, a rich and prominent man and a member of the Jewish Sanhedrin (the 70-member supreme judicial council or court of ancient Israel)… and, perhaps, a secret supporter or disciple of Jesus… asked for Jesus’ body and received permission from Pontius Pilate to bury it. He may have been accompanied and assisted in this task by Nicodemus, another rich and prominent man and member of the Sanhedrin… and the man who had once come to speak to Jesus in secret (Chapter 3 in the Gospel of John). The limp body of Jesus was taken down from his cross, carried to a borrowed tomb carved out of the limestone that was immediately above Golgotha, prepared for burial with more than a hundred pounds of spices, either wrapped up with cloth strips like a mummy or covered with a long burial shroud and sealed inside its final resting place by a large stone rolled across the entrance. A wax seal was put on the outside of the stone door and a group of guards were stationed. Some had a concern that the body might be stolen and a rising up falsely proclaimed.

JESUS SUFFERED UNDER PONTIUS PILATE, WAS CRUCIFIED, DIED, AND WAS BURIED. It had seemed like just another execution, deserved or undeserved, of a condemned person, one of three on that strangely shadowed day. After the executions, the crowds were gone home and their angry shouts and taunts had gone with them. Gone too were the screams and cries of the dying, as well as the sobs of any who valued those lost lives. Three men were dead. It seemed to be finished. Ended. And the disciples of Jesus were heartbroken, afraid, and seemingly just as dead. And their movement also seemed to be quite dead.

It was all over… or was it?                 
Pastor Neil & Pastor Gwen