Today is the day we celebrate Jesus’ death by crucifixion. Here in the image above we are confronted by the ugliness of the whole affair. This one event changes heaven and earth. Yet we are confronted with the consequences of our own sin and it being placed on Jesus, He being killed for our fallen nature. Here we see Mary, mother, bereft of that which grew in her in pregnancy by the Holy Spirit, suddenly is there nailed to the cross, and surely the words of Simeon rang in her ears “Surely a sword will pierce your soul also…”Never a truer word was spoken so prophetically, with so much sense.
All hopes, expectations faded away there, as the hidden plan of the Father is being executed. The satanic plan through Judas here made complete, yet this satanic plan was soon to come to realisation that the devil is defeated forever. The words of Joseph so true in Genesis 45 also true: “What was meant for my evil God has turned it round into the greatest good. ” And here in this image about we can truly count Him as stricken for our cause. Who can be persuaded more? Who can doubt the Love that the Father has for the crown of His creation? Man.
We need not to gloss over this ugliness, we need not shy away into some sort of empty triumphalism. We would be tempted in this Tridiuum of this season to step over Friday and Saturday to declare He has risen, yet we must like Mary be at His blood stained feet, be with Him in His moments of great despair as He cried out “Father, Father, why have you forsaken me?” That sense of separation, that sense of darkness as it spread over the land, as it spread over His Soul.
The type of struggle against despair and thirst, the way He cried out many times, shook the inner man of those Roman soldiers there in the image. We see and read in Matthew’s Gospel of an earthquake. We read of the dead rising again, we read of a great shaking and a great storm. This convinced the soldiers that the death of this One was no ordinary death.
“He who is forgiven much loves much”, is very true here. For this reason we must reside in Friday, because we need to know we have been forgiven much so that our love is perfected. Not that our love is sufficient, but is yet received in grace. Yet we must be sure to understand what sin is, and its consequences.
In this scene above, eternal life is opened up and light is made known even in the death of the saints, in His own death He took from the devil the keys of death and Hades.
Jesus suffered like no-one ever did, and made the greatest sacrifice that no man ever made. Let us meditate on this today…and receive Him and identify in His death, so that we can identify in His resurrection.
Maranatha.
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