What was Jesus Doing on Good Friday?

It's Good Friday! You probably have the day off from work. What kind of fun things will you do on the first day of your long weekend? Are you at the beach? Are you at the movies? Are you shopping? Are you running errands? Are you having lunch with a girlfriend?

Today, I want to share what Jesus was doing on Good Friday. What you'll read is not to make you feel bad or to heap guilt on you for planning a fun day. But it is to make us mindful and thankful. Today's reading is not for the weak-hearted. Our reading is graphic and is almost too much to bear. My attempt at sharing this information is not to gross you out. But to give you a glimpse of the price that Jesus paid for you and for me. Let's tread reverently. For we are on holy ground.

Trial #6 - Pilate for the final time. It's approximately 8:00am (Don't forget He's been up all night.)

Scripture records that Pilate desperately wanted to free Jesus. Something in him gave him no peace at executing Jesus. (His own wife sent him a message saying, "Don't have anything to do with that innocent man, for I have suffered a great deal today in a dream because of Him." Matt.27:19)

The Flogging
So in order to appease the Jewish people, Pilate orders Jesus to be flogged. Do you know what flogging means? Take a deep breathe, it's gruesome.

Jesus was stripped of all but His loincloth. He was tied with His face to a post. Using a whip of leather thongs tipped with metal bits, a soldier whipped Him. The whip would rip the flesh off of His back. His internal organs would have been exposed. The whipping would have gone from the shoulders down the back, to the buttocks and to the back of the legs. A flogging normally consisted of 39 lashes, depending on the mood of the soldier. It was beyond horrible. History records that victims would either go insane, go into unconsciousness or died.

The miracle is not that Jesus survived it - but that He submitted to it. At any point He could have called down a legion of angels and had them sent straight to hell. But He didn't. Keep in mind that the Cross was what would bring atonement for sin, not the flogging. The flogging was not part of the deal. Nor was the beating; nor the crown of thorns that was placed upon His brow following the intense beating. To add insult to injury, remember sweating drops of blood from a few days ago? This would have made His skin especially sensitive.

Following the beating, Pilate again tries to free Jesus - but the Jews press 'just the right the buttons' with Pilate saying: "If you let this man go, you are no friend of Caesar." There it is. Caesar is someone Pilate desperately wants to impress. So what happens? Jesus gets thrown under the bus. Pilate hands Jesus over to the Jews for execution. How quickly do we throw Jesus under the bus when we are around someone we want to impress?

It's approximately 9:00am.

The Crucifixion

If you are like me, you've grown accustomed to seeing the image of Jesus on a Cross. His hands are nailed down - His head bowed as if death has just occurred. It's become the emblem of the Christian faith. Before becoming desensitized to the image, let's take a closer look at what was happening.

According to ancient custom, the cross was placed on the ground. Then Christ would have been stretched out on it. Can you imagine His back - raw and exposed from the flogging - having to lay down on the wood?

According to Lee Strobal, in The Case for Easter, "The Romans used spikes that were 5-7 inches long and tapered to a sharp point. They were driven through the wrists, about an inch or so below His left palm. This was a solid position that would lock the hand; if the nails had driven through the palms, His weight would have caused the skin to tear and He would have fallen off the cross. So the nails went through the wrists. The wrists were considered part of the hand in the language of the day. The pain would have been absolutely unbearable."

Then the nails would have been driven through His feet. Strobal writes, "again, the nerves in His feet would have been crushed, and there would have been excrutiating pain."

Crucifixion is essentially an agonizingly slow death by asphyxiation. In order to exhale, Jesus would have to push up on His feet, breathe, release. Push up, breathe, release. Doing this again and again with His flogged back going up and down. Jesus was on the Cross from 9am - 3pm.

Six hours of intense agony. The last three hours being the worst - When Jesus would become sin...

This is what Jesus was doing on the Friday before Easter.