The thoughts below are not from my pen, but from my brother-in-law Bob Adams, a Christian minister who shared his gift for writing the “write” thing with family and friends on this special day. I feel that he would not object to my posting the message here. I trust someone will be touched and blessed thereby.
A Meditation on Good Friday
Holy Week – 2007
Luke 23:46
“Father, into Thy hands . . .”
It was late afternoon. Jesus had hung on the cross for six hours; six embarrassing, excruciating, death dealing hours. Early in the horror of that day, while it was yet light, Jesus shook away the blood running from his forehead and peered from eyes blurred with pain and exhaustion and looked at those gathered to watch his slow execution.
He saw those who jeered and mocked Him saying, “If You are the Son of God, then save Yourself.” He heard their jeers and raised his head slightly upward to whisper to the Father, “Forgive them. They don’t know what they are doing.” In that moment of prayer he heard the faint, longing cry of one of the men hung in the air beside him. The voice plead, “Remember me when you come into your kingdom.” Jesus twisted his head to look at the man staring from his own cross and said with weakened voice but with powerful assurance, “Today, you will be with me in Paradise.” Then His head fell and His heart was pierced in a way no instrument could ever pierce Him as He looked on His mother kneeling there, and John beside her. So came the third word from the cross, “Woman, behold your son . . . behold your mother.”
We don’t know, but I am quite at ease supposing that hours passed before the next recorded word from Jesus. The crowd continued to call out now and then. The soldiers drank their wine and became disinterested. Their prisoners could not escape. The religious leaders looked on, waiting to announce their victory. All the while, with each passing moment, Jesus’ pain increased and His weakness multiplied.
Then came a sudden rushing of the wind, and clouds – hard dark, unbelievable clouds – formed out of nothing. They didn’t blow in or arrive – they just suddenly covered the heavens – covered the heavens so that it became as dark as midnight; only in this midnight there was no luminescent moon and no twinkling stars. Suddenly the earth jarred beneath the feet of those standing in that darkness, the crosses trembled from the shaking. The earth was pummeled by a God sent quake. Then, in the darkness and in the shaking, came the most haunting and terrible of all cries, “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?”
The earth grew still, but darkness remained. And in the still darkness, after a while, a faint word from the middle cross, “I am thirsty.” A few caring souls dared to respond. Then more silence. Perhaps for several hours. No words. The darkness caught a few groans now and then from the two men on the outer crosses. But only silence from the middle cross – the silence of a lamb when being sheared.
Then, after six hours of torture. Six hours of life draining out of him from the constant flow of blood bleeding from his head because of the thorns, and his face because of the pulling of his beard and his back because of the beating and the hands and feet because of the piercing nails, it was finally over. He lifted His head with strength right out of heaven and shouted out, as if He had won a great victory – for He had – “It is finished”.
The seventh word from the cross came quickly. “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.” One translator says simply, “Father, I place my life in your hands.” His head fell on his chest, the arms and legs relaxed, and He was gone.
He who came as a tiny baby to be laid in a feeding trough on a dark night, and grew up to heal and teach as no one had ever done; He who was God Himself walking around in the flesh, was gone. Breath expired. Heart ceased. Wounds left open.
I believe in that moment, when He trusted himself to the Father and died, He did not depart to the glories of the Father. The Apostle Peter would indicate, and our redemption would make it necessary, that He descended into the pits of Hell. He carried our sins to the only place that was fit for them – into the place of eternal death. And then, after going there and ridding Himself of the sins of the whole world, and proclaiming the gospel to those captive in that place, only then was He raised up – raised up sinless and all glorious and all eternally alive never to die again.
On Good Friday evening we are at the end of that moment on the hill outside Jerusalem. By this evening Jesus has trusted Himself to the Father and descended into the darkness with our sins. And we call it Good Friday.
Good Friday.
In many ways it seems the ultimate expression of selfishness; of putting ourselves at the center of the universe. To call it Good Friday seems to ignore all that Jesus endured on this day, and it seems to surely ignore His continued sufferings in the darkness of a nether world that had absolutely no light from the Father. If we thought of Him at all, and not just ourselves, we would call it Horrible Friday. Unspeakable Friday. Silent Friday
But for a long time we have called it Good Friday. And so it is – not just from our selfish hearts, but from heaven, too. Good – because the suffering of incarnation is ended. Good – because the Father’s plan for bringing His children home safely is done. They can all come home now. Good – because what Isaiah said could now take place, (Isaiah 53:11-12).
“As a result of the anguish of His soul,
He will see it and be satisfied.
“Because He poured out Himself to death
And was numbered with the transgressors,
He Himself bore the sins of many,
And interceded for the transgressors.”
Yes, it is Good Friday because what Jesus came to do, He did, and the victory He came to win – He won. That victory was not for Himself, but for us. He became broken bread and poured out wine so that our hungry hearts might be nourished and our thirsty souls satisfied.
Good Friday. It is hard to embrace that name, but embrace it we must because the Lamb that bears our sins away was slain for us; and we remember the promise made that all who come in faith find forgiveness at the cross. So we share in His Bread of Life, and so we drink of His sacrifice as and weep with sorrow and joy. Horrible day. Perfect salvation.
–Bob Adams, Bogalusa, Louisiana
