The chief priests had Jesus tied in chains and they led him off to Pontius Pilate, the Roman governor of the city. “Are you the king of the Jews?” Pilate asked Jesus.
“So you say,” was all that Jesus would answer.
At the time of Passover, Pilate would set free any prisoner the people wanted. A crowd had gathered outside the governor’s palace, and so Pilate said to them, “Shall I set free this Jesus, your messiah?”
“We want Barabbas!” the crowd shouted back. Barabbas was a well known criminal.“What shall I do with Jesus then?”
“Crucify him!” the people shouted back.“But why?” Pilate pleaded. “What crime has he committed?”
“Crucify him!” the people cried out all the more.Pilate could see there was no use in arguing any more. The chief priests had convinced the crowd that Jesus had to die. And so he took a bowl and washed his hands. It was his way of saying he would have no part in it. “I find no reason to condemn this man!” he said.
“Let his blood be on us and on our children!” the crowd shouted back.
And so Pilate set Barabbas free. He escaped the sentence of death and Jesus took his place - just like Jesus would take the place of all sinners.
Pilate’s soldiers dragged Jesus inside of the palace.
They stripped off his clothes and whipped him. The metal barbs of the whips tore shreads of skin off his back. Then they put a purple robe on his back and made a crown out of thorny branches and pressed it into his head. They put a stick in his hands and knelt down in front of him. “Long live the king of the Jews!” they said, making fun of him. Then they spat in his face, and hit him over the head with the stick.
When that wasn’t fun anymore, they took the robe away and led him off to be crucified.They put a heavy cross on his bruised and bleeding back, and pushed him along, through the dusty streets of the city. Along the way the crowds pressed against the soldiers trying to get a better look. All the while they mocked him and spat on him as he passed by.
When Jesus could barely stumble another step, the soldiers took hold of a man from Cyrene named Simon, and forced him to carry the cross for him.
At last they came to the place called Golgotha, a hill they called the place of the skull. They offered Jesus a bitter wine mixed with a drug called myrrh, but he refused to drink it. Then the soldiers stretched Jesus out on the cross and drove heavy nails through his hands and feet.
And there they raised him up on the cross, and crucified him between two thieves.
The soldiers took his clothes and divided them among them. But his robe was made of one piece. “Let’s not tear it,” the soldiers said. And so they tossed dice to see who would get it.On his cross there was a sign that said, “Jesus, King of the Jews.” People passing by laughed at him and called out, “If you are God’s son, then save yourself, and come down off that cross!” At noon, a terrible darkness fell over the whole land.
For three hours the sun did not shine. At last, Jesus cried out in a loud voice filled with pain and anguish, “My God, my God, why did you leave me?”
The people standing nearby thought he was calling for Elijah.
One of the soldiers took a sponge and soaked it in vinegar and tried to make him drink it. “Wait! Let us see if Elijah will save him!” someone in the crowd shouted.
But Jesus cried, “It is finished!”And then, with a loud cry, he breathed his last and died.
It was as if the whole earth shuddered the moment Jesus died.
Mountains trembled.
Rocks split open.
And at that moment, the curtain that hung in the temple was torn in two from top to bottom.
That curtain was used to separate the people from the Holy of Holies, the sacred place in the temple where only the priests could enter. Only they could come before God and speak for the people.
Now that curtain had been torn apart.
It was as though God were saying there is no longer anything that separates God from his people.
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Mediatations for Holy Saturday
’Tis Love! ’tis Love! thou diedst for me,
I hear thy whisper in my heart.
The morning breaks, the shadows flee,
pure Universal Love thou art:
to me, to all, thy mercies move—
thy nature, and thy name is Love.
-Charles Wesley
Come, and let us return unto the LORD: for he hath torn, and he will heal us; he hath smitten, and he will bind us up. After two days will he revive us: in the third day he will raise us up, and we shall live in his sight. Hosea 6:1,2
The School of Jesus The word "disciple" has taken on not only a religious meaning, but a religious feel and tone. Our English word is faithful to the linguistic background of the word for being "under discipline" in the way that "discipline" is used in academic circles; that is, one who studies and learns. This learning is formal, guided and governed by standards that the learner cannot alter. The one who studies either passes or fails.
A German translation of μαθητής (mathētēs, that word we translate as "disciple") is the word Schüler. This comes from the same root, obviously, as the word "scholar," and also the word "school." To be a disciple of Jesus is to be in the school of Jesus.
The school of Jesus begins with one subject, and we never graduate in this life. We take our exams everyday, we are graded far more generously than we deserve by a merciful Teacher, and our studies continue.
The school of Jesus is the way of the cross.
"Whosoever doth not bear his cross, and come after me, cannot be my disciple." Luke 14:27
This is the way of death, a lesson we must learn everyday, if we follow Jesus. In order to follow him we must die everyday to our own will, our desires, our pride, our lust, our anger.
Jesus did not carry the cross only on Good Friday. He was ready to die that day because all of his life he had lived to do the will of his Father, not to please himself.
Beginning on Thursday night, we see how a lifetime of being in the form of a servant prepared him to carry the heavy wood of the cross, all the way up to Golgotha where he would be nailed to it, and would pour out his soul unto death.
With humility he washes the feet of the disciples. At that time he redirected the motives of his closest disciples, who were arguing until then about which of them should be the greatest.
"So after he had washed their feet, and had taken his garments, and was set down again, he said unto them, Know ye what I have done to you? Ye call me Master and Lord: and ye say well; for so I am. If I then, your Lord and Master, have washed your feet; ye also ought to wash one another's feet. For I have given you an example, that ye should do as I have done to you." John 13: 11-15
On several other occasions he had said such things to them."The disciple is not above his master, nor the servant above his lord. It is enough for the disciple that he be as his master, and the servant as his lord. If they have called the master of the house Beelzebub, how much more shall they call them of his household?" Matthew 10:24, 25
"Whosoever will be great among you, let him be your minister; And whosoever will be chief among you, let him be your servant: Even as the Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many." Matthew 20:26-28
The school of Jesus is the way of the cross. He has no other course of study for us, for it is the only way of life and of peace.
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The sun was just beginning to rise, and in the pale light, a group of women hurried along together.
The morning air felt cool against their skin.
They were on their way to the tomb of Jesus, with oils and perfume to properly bury the body.
Mary Magdalene was with them.
She walked with her head bowed, and tears still rolling down her cheek.
Mary the mother of James and Joseph was also there.
As they walked, they talked quietly with each other.
“But who will roll away the stone?” they wondered...
http://www.essex1.com/people/paul/lent4d.html
Many thanks to Paul Dallgas-Frey, brother in Christ
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