On this day nearly two thousand years ago three men were crucified in Jerusalem. There was nothing too unusual about this, the Romans crucified lots of people. Two of the men crucified were known criminals, but one of these men, Jesus Christ, was different. The Roman Governor, Pontius Pilate, didn’t really want to crucify Jesus, but those Jewish leaders were insisting that Jesus was a threat. Pilate investigated the matter, but still couldn’t find anything wrong with Jesus, no reason why he should be crucified. This held no sway with the Jewish leaders. Pilate’s wife warned her husband that the matter was dangerous. Pilate hadn’t asked to be in this situation, but here he was. What to do about the dilemma? At this time of year it was the custom to release one prisoner, so he offered the crowd Barabbas, a well known good-for-nothing, or Jesus, the man who had gone around doing good and healing people. Surely this would solve the problem? But no, the crowd wanted Barabbas freed and Jesus crucified. The last thing Pilate wanted was a riot, it was more than his job was worth. So Pilate adopted chose expediency over principle and agreed to crucify Jesus. He sought to wash his hands of the matter, but there is no washing our hands in relation to Jesus, we need to make a definite decision.
The religious leaders were delighted, this truly was a good Friday as far as they were concerned. They were the religious elite, holding positions of influence and honour in society, a time when religion still mattered in civic life. Jesus threatened all that. Why? Because he was so different, so much better. There was no hypocrisy in him, just pure love and obedience to God. Moreover, he went around healing people, setting them free. And to make matters worse he issued periodic tirades against the religious leaders, highlighting their hypocrisy. And all of it was true! How better to solve the problem than to have this man killed? The tragedy is that if they had admitted their guilt and repented they would have found Jesus so welcoming, so willing to forgive. They would have received eternal life. Instead they had Jesus killed and eternal death became their destiny.
Jesus had disciples, and they thought this was a day of disaster. They had left livelihoods to follow this man, and things had been good for a couple of years or so. But then he started telling them he would be handed over to the rulers and put to death. How could this be? He also mentioned something about rising from the dead, but they had no idea what he was on about on that score. No one came back from the dead.
But there was one man who seemed to be in control. On the evening before he had been in agony in the garden of Gethsemane, asking his heavenly Father if there was any other way, but both of them knew there wasn’t. The events of good Friday would literally be excruciating, physically, emotionally and spiritually, but Jesus was committed to doing the Father’s will, and from that point on he was absolutely resolute. He seemed to know what was going on. You see, only Jesus truly understood the depth of the problem with humanity, the depth of the problem with you and me. Only he understood how deep and pervasive the twistedness inside us goes, how deep the sin goes. And he knew that by going to that cross he could deal with the problem, he could get to the root of the problem with you and me. No papering over the cracks, but really deal with the heart of the matter.
On that day people saw this man on the cross, they saw the physical torture that was crucifixion. But what they did not see was that Jesus was also carrying all our pain, all our suffering, and above all else, all our guilt. The punishment that should have been ours was being placed on Jesus, the only truly innocent man to have ever walked this planet.
On this day some two thousand years ago we were being healed.
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