This was written in December 2008… found it in my FB notes. It was pre-blog days.

I am studying the Psalms during my mornings with my God, and I am currently learning more about my Saviour from Psalms 22, 23, and 24. These mornings have been so sweet as we draw near to Christmas, the day we have chosen to celebrate the birth of Christ, the Messiah, the Promised Seed, the Saviour, the Only One who can say “Yet You are He who brought me forth from the womb; You made me trust when upon my mother’s breast. Upon You I was cast from birth; You have been my God from my mother’s womb.”(Psalm 22:9-10).

Jesus is the only man or woman to ever be born without the reproach of sin. Conceived by the Holy Spirit of God in the womb of a virgin. “Who although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men. Being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.”(Philippians 2:6-8).

Jesus cried out, “My God, my God, why have You forsaken me?”(Psalm 22:1) He cried out with such anguish that the rocks shook. Jesus, the God-Man, always in perfect union and fellowship with the Father, cries out, because for the first and only time the Father had to forsake Him, as the sins of the world were placed upon Him, as He fully God and fully man, completely laid aside His divine in order to suffer in His body the due penalty of my sins, He cried out, forsaken. Christ on the cross, with no where to turn, and with no one to turn to, before the time of the cross, no matter what earthly family or friend turned His back on Him, Jesus always had the Father, but in this moment, Christ was alone.

He made no sound and no cry for help as He was betrayed by His friends, no sound, no defence, no denial of who He was and is as He stood before the council, no fear no cry for mercy as He stood before Pilate or before the crowd (Isaiah 53:7), on the cross, lifted high as was the bronze serpant on the standard (Numbers 21), Christ finally began to speak. And as the world below looked up at Him and mocked His naked, beaten person, on that cross; as the world below continues to this very day to look up and mock that beautiful God-Man on the cross, Christ cried out and continues to cry out, “Father, forgive them, they know not what they do.”(Luke 23:34).

And as the weight of my sins and your sins were cast upon Him and as the holiness of God turned His face away from Him, Jesus, cried out, with a cry that the likeness of has never been heard before or since, and He was forsaken, alone.

He was alone, so that no other one ever has to be. Because He was forsaken, we never have to be. We can be, if we refuse, but we never HAVE to be.

No matter what happens on this earth, no matter what man may do to me, no matter what circumstaces might come my way, I will never be alone. Even in death, I am not alone, and because of Christ, I will not lie on my death bed in fear or concern of not knowing if I have been good enough to be allowed to enter into the realm of heaven’s eternity, because I have assurance in Him and in His word. “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him shall not perish, but have everlasting life.”(John 3:16)

On that cross, Christ breathed His last and said “It is finished”, the debt was paid in full.

“It will be told of the LORD to the coming generation. They will come and will declare His righteousness to a people who will be born, that He has performed it.”(Psalm 22:30-31).

I declare His righteousness today and I declare that He has performed it. I will declare it until I breathe my last, because I believe it with all my heart, all my mind, and all my soul. In no other place do I know of such a God, who would lay aside His divine, His diety, in order to save a wretch like me, but oh, my Eliohim, He did. He did.

“Those who seek Him will praise the LORD. Let your heart live forever!”(Psalm 22:26).

I don’t always understand why. I don’t always understand how. I don’t always get to know when and where and what for. I do, however, always get to know WHO. That Who is my risen Saviour who stands at my Father’s right hand.

We had a strange Easter this year. Both of my girls were home sick and so pretty dresses were left hanging in the closet, no Easter musical was heard, no passion play seen, no colored eggs were searched for, no fancy meal was consumed, no extended family to be hung out with, and no cute pics titled Easter 2013 to be posted or developed.

As the Children’s Ministry Director, I went to Easter Sunday alone in my blue jeans and t-shirt while Dad stayed home to take care of the girls. I spent the morning at Church playing with the babies and getting lots of love hugs from my beautiful little ones. I was the last one to leave the church, as I took poopy diapers to the dumpster and picked up some Chinese take-out on the way home.

I got home and me and my husband and our girls ate together and then we piled up. We played Apples to Apples. My husband taught the girls how to build a house of cards and a few card tricks to astound their friends. We took temperatures to see whose was less. Our Bekah, who is usually the one sick, was doing the happy dance all day, and singing “I’m healthier than you!” every time the thermometer revealed that her temp was actually lower than our Shelby’s.

Then we piled up one last time to watch “The Bible”

My husband and I cried all the way through it…

It never ceases to amaze me that God would choose to save the likes of us. I look at the depths of our depravity, the callousness of our cruelty, the ability of our abusiveness toward one another… and I cannot fathom why He would see any reason to not just leave us to ourselves to destroy one another.

Why on earth would He want to save us?

How on earth can He look at us with such love?

Yet He did. ON EARTH. On earth, not from a distant heaven, but on earth… up close and personal, He still looked at us with oh so great love.

I want to meet Simon of Cyrene.

I want to meet the man who was able to see into the eyes of our Savior as He went to the hill that would display His death. I want to meet the man. Oh how I do hope that He was a man who strengthened the Lord as he helped Him carry His cross. Oh how I hope he was a man that spoke kindness to the Lord and encouraged Him as the History Channel series depicted. Oh how I hope that he was a man who loved the Lord and did not curse Him as he walked so closely with Him, His blood spilling over on to him as they walked up that hill to the Lord’s death…

I remember when my sister had her wreck and the doctors gave me her blood covered jewelry and I held her blood covered hands and stroked her blood covered face and hair as I sung to her and prayed with her… hoping she could hear me. I wore her rings and I kept her blood on me. I just could not wash it off until I knew she would live.

I wonder if Simon of Cyrene felt the same way about the blood of Christ that had to cover him and his garments…

Then I watched as Mary bathed the body of her Son. I watched as Nicodemus and Joseph sang over His body… and I thought as I watched her gently wash the stains of hate and betrayal and death away from his body… this is how we are to treat His body today.

His body is the church. We the believers. We are His body. How do we treat one another? How we treat one another is how we are treating His body. Every lash into His skin was for one of us. Every blow to His back was for our sin. Every kick to His side was for our transgression. Each swing of the hammer that nailed Him to the cross was for our rebellion. Every single one.

When someone comes to Him and believes in Him… truly believes… they accept that. Then the weight of that falls on them… and when it’s real, really believed, it is so very hard to bare.

Those who believe are to take that one who has just realized the weight of it all and we are begin to care for that stripe, that blow, that kick, that hammer swing to the body. We are to begin washing them with the water of the Word… and applying healing salt to the wounds and strengthening them so that they might go and do the same to the parts of His body that they will have in their reach.

Are you caring for His body?

So, as those who have been chosen of God, holy and beloved, put on a heart of compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience; bearing with one another, and forgiving each other, whoever has a complaint against anyone; just as the Lord forgave you, so also should you.

Colossians 3:12-13

He cried out “It is finished” but it wasn’t over… It was finished to begin… a brand new beginning. The old is finished but the new had just begun.

 

Therefore you too have grief now;

but I will see you again,

and your heart will rejoice,

and no one will take your joy away from you.

John 16:22

It’s Saturday morning. Jesus would still be in the grave… Yesterday around 12pm darkness fell upon the earth (Luke 23:44-45). The sun was obscured and the veil (Exodus 26:31-35, Matthew 27:51) of the temple was torn into and the rocks quaked. Then by 3pm He breathed His last.

Therefore when Jesus had received the sour wine,

He said, “It is finished!” 

And He bowed His head and gave up His spirit.

John 19:30

Around 3pm, He was removed from that Roman cross. His body beaten beyond recognition, His hands and feet with holes bore through them by the nails of this crucifixion, and His side pierced through by a Roman spear, His heart now empty of blood and water.

Joseph from Arimathea came and requested from Pilate the body of the Teacher, the Word made flesh… the One who was crucified as the world’s Passover, even though the world did not understand.

By 6pm Friday, Joseph would have Jesus tenderly and respectfully wrapped in linen and laid in the tomb. The women (Luke 23:55-56) would have carefully and weepingly, prepared the spices and perfumes to anoint His body. All doing as they honored Him with what they thought was their last opportunity to do so…

Then they left Him… I am sure in silence… each lost in their own memories of the most amazing human being they had ever met… and they knew their lives would never be the same… ever again.

By this time I am sure the others have heard of the suicide of Judas, the denial of Peter, the scattering of them all… all except John and the women who stayed and followed and witnessed it all.

I wonder if this day… they fought amongst each other. Each blaming the other for His death. I wonder if they pointed fingers and went through the event over and over and over in their heads thinking of all the ways they could have, should have, stopped what happened. I wonder if punches were thrown in their grief… human broken hearts in the flesh respond in such strange ways to great tragedy…

I can’t imagine the heart of Mary as she watched her Son that day.

I can’t imagine the despair of Peter as he carried his denial of the One he swore to follow even to his own death.

I wonder if they remembered Jesus words to one another, His last command to them and chose to obey Him here and love and comfort one another…

This is My commandment,

that you love one another,

just as I have loved you.

John 15:12

I wonder if they just sat in silence… numb to the pain by the shock of the events and the haste in which it all happened. One moment they are with Him, He is washing their feet, teaching them, sharing a meal with them, then the next He is taken… beaten… nailed… lifeless… buried in a tomb.

How?

Why?

Their worlds must have been spinning. Their emotions reeling. Their hearts melting. Their strength drained.

That Friday evening they went home… that Sabbath… they left His cross… His tomb… and they rested according to the commandment. They went back to what they knew… they went back to the Law.

Many of them were hid away behind locked door (John 20:19) afraid the Jews would come after them next… Yet some how, some where, John had found Peter (John 20:2). I imagine their were no accusations in the words of John toward Peter, no condemnation, no spite or blame.

I imagine John obeying his Teacher… and choosing instead to love Peter. I imagine John reminding Peter of all that Jesus had taught them. I imagine John telling Peter that the best way they can honor their Teacher is to continue to live out His life. I imagine John wrapping his arms around Peter while this broken man wept. I imagine John telling Peter of the rocks crying out, of the veil tearing, of the darkness, of the fear of those who once mocked the man on the cross having their mouths shut by the terror of the events that came at the moment He breathed His last…

I imagine Peter and John trying to figure out the how and why… going over in their heads everything He said and did… remembering the promises… the Scriptures… the prophets.

I imagine the women doing the same… led by Mary, the mother of Jesus, all the ponderings of her heart causing her to wonder, could this really be the end?

Yes Saturday, the Sabbath day, Jesus was still in the grave.

But Sunday is coming…

Jesus spoke these things; and lifting up His eyes to heaven, He said, “Father, the hour has come; glorify Your Son, that the Son may glorify You, even as You gave Him authority over all flesh, that to all whom You have given Him, He may give eternal life. This is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent. I glorified You on the earth, having accomplished the work which You have given Me to do. Now, Father, glorify Me together with Yourself, with the glory which I had with You before the world was.

John 17:1-5

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When Jesus had spoken these words, He went forth with His disciples over the ravine of the Kidron, where there was a garden, in which He entered with His disciples. Now Judas also, who was betraying Him, knew the place, for Jesus had often met there with His disciples. Judas then, having received the Roman cohort andofficers from the chief priests and the Pharisees, came there with lanterns and torches and weapons. So Jesus,knowing all the things that were coming upon Him, went forth and said to them, “Whom do you seek?” They answered Him, “Jesus the Nazarene.” He said to them, “I am…”

John 18:1-5

The disciples had spent the last three years walking with a man who passed through the hands of those who sought to push Him over cliffs with ease. They had watched Him walk on water. They had seen Him calm the storm and raging seas with a word. They had seen Him cast out legions of demons, make blind men see, lame men walk, dead people rise up and breathe and speak as though nothing had ever been wrong with them ever.

They even experienced Him granting them some of His power and authority and through His name they themselves cast out demons and made blind men see… I smile as I even remember a time that they asked Jesus if they should call down fire from heaven to consume some men who were not treating Jesus with the respect they thought was due Him (Luke 9:53-55).

These disciples thought they had hit the big time. Jesus was the Messiah. The Man. The One who would kick the door of Caesar in and remove the yoke of Rome’s bondage and destroy any nation that tried to put them in bondage again… and they were on His team. They were fighting over who would be the greatest in His kingdom… and I wonder if Jesus sat back as He listened to their bickering if He inwardly smiled at their innocent ignorance or if He shook His head in slight annoyance. “Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing” must have been a thought that continuously ran through His mind.

I would think that the disciples were convinced that this Man was invincible, unstoppable, and they probably were so stuck on these thoughts that they never even heard Him when He spoke of His death… they probably even laughed at it… considering this as their Lord being “overly humble”. I mean really who could kill a man who could walk on water and raise others from the dead?

This was the Messiah, the Christ, the Son of the Living God. Right?

Can you even begin to imagine the confusion, the despair, the fear, that entered the souls of these men as they watched Him walk away with a cohort of Roman soldiers and all the chief priests and Pharisees… with victory in their eyes… and with something they had never seen before in the eyes of the One they called Lord.

There were, to be sure, ways of coping with the death of a teacher, or even a leader. The picture of Socrates was available, in the wider world, as a model of unjust death nobly borne. The category of ‘martyr’ was available, within Judaism, for someone who stood up to pagans… The category of failed but still revered Messiah, however, did not exist. A Messiah who died at the hands of the pagans, instead of winning [God’s] battle against them, was a deceiver…

~ N.T. Wright

Was it over?

How could this Man… this Jesus… be a deceiver?

There had been so many before Him, so many who claimed to be the one, but all were dead. All proven to be deceivers by their death and defeat… but there had never been one like Him. They were so sure He was the One.  So very sure.

Yet now there He is… not even appearing as a man… hanging there from a Roman cross. Dying just like all the others who claimed to be yet were not.

Those who once cried “Hosanna” cried “Crucify” and there He is broken, beaten, bleeding, bound, betrayed, belittled, and bending beneath the weight of their sin that He is carrying in every stripe on His body.

“Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing”

Good Friday?

Really?

Three days and three nights?

The question constantly arises: If the Lord was really crucified on Friday and rose again on Sunday, how could that have encompassed three days and three nights? The Gospel accounts indicate that the Lord was crucified on Friday at 9:00 a.m. and taken off the cross at 3:00 p.m. His body was prepared for burial and interred at sundown the same day, which was the beginning of the Festival of Unleavened Bread. The Lord then arose on Sunday morning after sunup. According to the modern way of counting, this spans barely two days. Yet that time period seems to disagree with Jesus’ earlier prediction: “For as Jonas was three days and three nights in the whale’s belly; so shall the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth” (Matt. 12:40).

The prophecy can be understood when we examine the Jewish way of counting days and nights. We must recall that the Jewish day always starts at sunset, so that Friday really begins on Thursday evening (a fact that is reflected in the language of Genesis – “the evening and the morning” are the first day). The second day then begins at sundown on Friday and continues through the daytime on Saturday. Finally, Sunday begins at sundown on Saturday and stretches through Saturday night and the daylight hours of Sunday, making the third day. And since the Jews counted any portion of daylight as a full day, then Friday morning through Sunday morning would have been seen as three complete days.

~ Zola Levitt

As of right now, according to my central time zone, He would be on that cross.