I’m curious. What do you think of when you hear the word “Easter”? Does that word conjure up thoughts that are all things bunnies and baskets, Easter egg hunts, lilies, and family dinners? Is Easter one of a handful of times you attend a church every year, more out of duty because you have been hurt by the church, or someone in it? Is Easter just another day on the calendar? Is it a genuine celebration of an empty tomb? What does that word mean to you?
When I was a little girl, we attended an annual Easter egg hunt sponsored by our little country church, usually held the Saturday before Easter Sunday. Coloring eggs and writing our names on the eggs with a white crayon was thrilling. I can still smell the vinegar in the bowls that contained all of those beautiful dyes used to turn our ordinary eggs into unique works of art. On Easter morning, the Easter Bunny prepared baskets and then hid them somewhere in our living room. Because the Easter Bunny knew I was the oldest, he always hid mine in such a way that it was a little harder to find than my younger siblings. Their baskets always seemed to be in plain sight, while I searched. After all of the baskets were found, we ate jelly beans and chocolate bunnies for breakfast and then dressed up in our Easter finery for church. Very often, because my mom and grandma sewed some of our clothes, my dress matched my sister’s dress, and maybe even my mom’s. There were photo sessions and singing and stories of Jesus no longer being dead, but alive….so alive! Finally we all headed to a relative’s house to spend the afternoon with our extended family. Our family is big. There were a lot of us crowded into that little house. We ate until we could eat no more. We played outside, watched football games and took naps. It was glorious.
Here’s the thing. I have a tendency during Passion Week to place all of my attention on the excitement of Sunday. I have grown out of the Easter bunny phase. So have my kids. I truly love celebrating the wonder of Jesus’ resurrection. But the reality is that a lot happened in those seven days between Palm Sunday and Easter Sunday. This year, I have felt challenged to not just look at the events of that first Easter Sunday morning at the tomb, but at what also happened in the days leading up to the resurrection that many of us are preparing to celebrate.
My church has just completed a 7-week series called, “Last Words”. Each week we have focused on one of the seven statements that Jesus spoke on the cross before he died. This study has been so enlightening. It’s been brutal. It’s been sobering. I am reminded that very often I tend to jump over the agony of the cross and go straight to the Easter “party.” I don’t want to make that mistake this year.
Tomorrow is Good Friday, the day that Jesus was crucified on the cross. The Romans did not invent crucifixion as a form of capital punishment. The Assyrians did that. But the Romans borrowed this method and perfected the art of crucifixion torture. I have been told by a bible teacher that the average person who was crucified lived on his cross, naked, for three days before dying. The Roman soldiers stayed on guard as the sentence was carried out. Most crucifixions occurred at ground level, near a road, so travelers who passed by could jeer and taunt those awaiting death. The Roman soldiers were there not to guard the convicted, but to prevent the loved ones present at the cross from comforting those who had been condemned.
So Jesus hung there on his cross, between two convicted criminals, in both emotional and physical agony. Never had he felt such physical torture. Never had he felt such rejection by his Heavenly Father. The intensity of his emotional pain was simply off the charts.
The crucifixion, although brutal, was timed so perfectly by God. In Jerusalem, at the time of Jesus, two offerings were made daily to God by the priests in the temple. These sacrifices were called the Tamid sacrifices, and they involved the blood sacrifice of a spotless lamb, perfect and without blemish. The morning sacrifice took place each day at the 3rd hour (9 am) and the evening sacrifice took place at the 9th hour (3 pm). Two lambs were slain in the temple daily to account for the forgiveness of the peoples’ sins.
Do you know what time the bible very specifically says Jesus was nailed to the cross? 9 am!
Do you know what time the bible very specifically says that Jesus died on the cross? 3 pm!
The perfect, spotless, and blameless Lamb of God fulfilled, once and for all, the Tamid sacrifice for all people – past, present and future. This means me and it means you. When Jesus said, “It is finished”, he meant exactly that. His blood paid the forever price for us. Jesus hung on the cross for only 6 hours before he cried, “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.” Then he died. The one who was instrumental from the beginning in creation, the one who could have used his supernatural power to call down heaven’s army to save him, stayed on that cross…not for three days like the average criminal…but long enough to become our forever sacrifice.
The redemption story God was writing had come full circle. Think about it. Jesus was born at night in Bethlehem, but the sky was filled with light from the chorus of angels who heralded his birth. Jesus was crucified at Golgotha during the day, but at noon, the sky became dark as night and stayed that way for 3 hours. In the book of Genesis, it is recounted that after eating fruit from the tree that they had been forbidden by God to eat, Adam and Eve stood behind a tree, naked, cowering in shame. Fast forward to the old rock quarry named Golgotha and we see Jesus, hanging on a tree, naked, conquering our shame. What better illustration of God’s love for all of us. “God does some of his best work through death. While Jesus was being crushed on the cross, he was doing some crushing of his own”. (Quote by Kristi McLelland)
So don’t be afraid to ponder the cross as Easter approaches. Don’t be afraid to explore the intimate death of Jesus. It may not feel like a Good Friday, but without that heart-breaking, horrible act, there would be no Resurrection Sunday. So in my book, that makes Friday pretty great.