After - Day 6

Good Friday is the most difficult day of the last week of Jesus’ life. Christ's journey turned difficult and painful in these final hours leading to his death. There was treachery, deceit, and tragedy in these final hours.

According to Scripture, Judas Iscariot, the disciple who had betrayed Jesus, was overcome with remorse and hanged himself early Friday morning.

Meanwhile, before the third hour (9 a.m.), Jesus endured the shame of false accusations, condemnation, mockery, beatings, and abandonment. After multiple unlawful trials, he was sentenced to death by crucifixion, one of the most horrible and disgraceful methods of capital punishment known at the time. It was a punishment undeserving of who Jesus was and what he had done.

Before Christ was led away, soldiers spit on him, tormented and mocked him, and pierced him with a crown of thorns. Then Jesus carried his own cross to Calvary where, again, he was mocked and insulted as Roman soldiers nailed him to the wooden cross. The journey up the Via Dolorosa is one that pilgrims have traveled every day since that fateful afternoon.

Jesus spoke seven final statements from the cross. His first words were, "Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing." (Luke 23:34, NIV). His last words were, "Father, into your hands I commit my spirit." (Luke 23:46, NIV)

Then, about the ninth hour (3 p.m.), Jesus breathed his last breath and died. And at that moment, even the earth cried out in anguish and pain. The curtain in the temple was torn from top to bottom, and everything changed for all of us.

By 6 p.m. Friday evening, Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea took Jesus' body down from the cross and lay it in a tomb. There it lay over the Sabbath in order to remind us of what death and sin truly was and is. It was a moment of clarity, a moment of anxiety and a moment of deep despair.

1. While you know this story quite well, was there anything you had forgotten about when you read the texts listed above? 
2. How can you connect with different parts of the Good Friday Narrative? 
3. Will we see you tonight at Crosswalk?