Passion Week: Good Friday

Activity: With your parent's permission, get out some cocoa powder. Give it a sniff. Doesn't it smell good? 

Now put a teaspoon of the cocoa powder on a plate. With very clean hands, dip the tip of your finger into the powder and taste. Yuck! Not what you expected, is it? The same is true for vanilla. It smells delicious, but a tiny taste reveals it tastes awful by itself. 

However if you mix it together with other ingredients both taste good in the end. 

Try making Chocolate Mug Cake...it's delicious.

Like the awful taste of cocoa powder alone, have you ever had something happen not like you expected. You expected something great and...it was awful. 

That's what happened on Good Friday. While Jesus had told his disciples many times, “We are going up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man will be delivered over to the chief priests and the teachers of the law. They will condemn him to death and will hand him over to the Gentiles to be mocked and flogged and crucified. On the third day he will be raised to life!” (Matthew 20:18-19), somehow Jesus' words didn't make any sense. After all, just a few day ago, the crowds welcomed Jesus as their King! Things were going well...until just after midnight on Friday.

While in the Garden of Gethsemane, Judas came with with his own crowd. The same feet Jesus had washed hours ago, were now walking toward Him. And with a kiss, Judas betrayed Jesus, and He was arrested. This was not the plan. Kings don't get arrested. Jesus' friends had fled. Things got worse. The trials were unfair, His friends who could have spoken up for Him remained silent. But even then a presence filled the room. 

The nard from a few days ago would have slowly and gently begun to fill the space. They knew they were in Jesus' presence. They just didn't want to believe they were in God's. Then things got worse....

Pilate tried to bargain with a pressing mob. Pilate thought his bargain for Jesus' life over Barabbas was foolproof. He lost the bargain. And Jesus was condemned to die. 

For three hours Jesus hung on the cross. 

The scent of the nard and sweat would have been in the air around those who dared enough to come close. Even then he had a servant's heart. He asked for forgiveness for those who did this. He even gave hope to the repentant thief that he would be with Jesus in Paradise later, that death was not the end. And then, at about 3 o'clock, Jesus died. 

The One who was going to be their King was dead.

Strange things happened at that moment. And earthquake shook the land. The veil that separated the Most Holy Place was torn in two in a sickening ripping sound that echoed throughout the temple. The four inch thick curtain tore from the very top to the bottom all by itself, as if the dividing line between God and man had been erased in the sand. “Surely he was the Son of God!” the Centurion said. 

But Jesus was still dead. The soldiers proved it. They released his body to his mother and John and few of his followers to be buried. But they had to do it quick! Sundown for the Sabbath was only hours away and they had to be home by then. By then it would be dark anyways. What did it matter? There wasn't even time to put spices on his body for burial. 

But yet, as they wrapped him, the scent of the nard from nearly a week ago was still there. It would have to do. They wouldn't be able to come back until Sunday morning to do a proper job. They placed Jesus' body in a borrowed tomb and rolled the stone in place.

 Dead people don't rule. 

This was not how it was supposed to be.