Jesus had just a few hours before, had been having supper with his friends. He had been trying to tell them what was about to happen. He had explained that one of them would sell him out. And that Peter would deny him 3 times. After supper, they went to Gethsemane where he became very troubled. He knew he was facing the very reason he was born on this earth. And it was less then a very pleasing thought now. It was causing him so much anguish that he wanted to back out. But he knew it was his Father's will to proceed and he knew he had to go through with it.
After he was through praying, Judas and the Roman Soldiers came up. Judas had been the one to sell Jesus out as he gave him a kiss. And he did it for just 30 pieces of silver. The amount he was willing to pay for his "friends" life. But he did and now Jesus was arrested and taken before the high priest and the chief priests and the whole Sanhedrin.looking on.
They had been looking for anything they could use against Jesus to just get rid of him for good. The only answer that Jesus himself would give them was that he was 'the Son of the Living God' to which it was decided he was "worthy of death."
Jesus was to be flogged and crucified. And when the soldiers had their fun mocking him and had stripped him of his clothes, they led him off to the place where he would be on display for everyone to see. Because, as they "knew" he was not really the Son of God as he claimed. What God would ever allow his Son to be humiliated like that. Jesus was just not who he claimed to be and they were going to prove it.
And Jesus hung on the cross until about evening when they made sure that he was dead. While his grief stricken mother and friends looked on. What if he wasn't really the Son of God? Had they had any real doubt? Perhaps even just an inkling? Would he really come out of that tomb as he said he would? Or did they just take it for granted that he was in there and he wasn't coming out alive?
Today's scripture references: Mathew 26:36-67, 27:11:61
April 12, 2019 Easter Reading: With a loud cry Jesus breathed his last. And the curtain in the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. When the centurion who stood in front of Jesus saw how he had died, he said "Surely, this man was the Son of God!"
Hi Friends. Jesus died a horrible death that day. In my youth I had once thought that since he was God's Son, God had to have spared him all that pain that day. That was my youthful ignorance speaking at that time in my life. It was not until later when I learned about what flogging was and what he had experienced, did it open my eyes to know that his death did not come easy or painless at all. He really had taken on not only the sin of the world but it was through the physical pain that he endured for hours before death took him.
The Good News! is that that death did not hold him. It could not. Satan who was the instigator of the whole thing from its very beginning, did not win anything. He has truly lost it all. Even though it does not look like it now. God is not finished with him yet! We will eventually see his own finish and what a glorious day that will be! God bless your Good Friday.
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