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On the day that many English-speaking Christians call “Good Friday,” one Jesus of Nazareth (a small town in present-day Israel), a good man, according to many, was executed on a hillside outside Jerusalem by the Roman authorities of the time, under the direction of Pontus Pilate, then governor of the Roman province.

     

Crucifixion, which the Romans used to execute many criminals, was a particularly cruel form of punishment that led to the death of the offender. The pain in this form of capital punishment has been described as “excruciating.” In fact, the word excruciating, from the Latin “out of the cross,” was coined from the practice of crucifixion. If you have seen Mel Gibson’s film “The Passion of the Christ,” you have some idea of the pain that was involved.

 

Dr. Alexander Metherall, M.D., Ph.D., in an interview with journalist Lee Strobel, contained in Strobel’s book The Case for Christ, provides scientific insights into what Jesus endured on Good Friday. After Jesus had been abused verbally and physically, including being flogged at least 39 times with braided leather thongs in which were embedded metal balls and sharp pieces of bone, he was led out to a place called Golgotha (which means ‘place of the Skull') where spikes were driven through his wrists, nailing him to a crossbar. Then this bar, with the victim attached, was raised on a vertical beam, and the weight of Jesus’ bruised and bloody body stretched his arms and dislocated his shoulders, all of which put pressure on numerous nerves. Gravity continued to pull the body downwards, and inhibited the breathing process.  Metherall states, “Crucifixion is essentially an agonizingly slow death by asphyxiation.” The physical stress of the process led to respiratory acidosis, which resulted in cardiac arrest.

 

In this manner, Jesus of Nazareth was executed with two other criminals during the Jewish Feast of Passover. The crucifixion was a public spectacle, much like hangings were at one time, and numerous people came to observe. At the end of six hours on the cross, Jesus of Nazareth died. When the Roman soldiers came to break the legs of the three on the crosses (to speed up their death), they discovered that Jesus had already expired, so they broke the legs of the others, and then took the bodies down. One Joseph of Arimathea claimed the body of Jesus, and placed it in a tomb he owned.

 

All three men suffered horrendous physical pain on their cross.  Jesus, with a crown of thorns placed on his head, was also mocked and derided by many standing nearby. He had been deserted by most of his followers, and even appeared to feel forsaken by God, crying out “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” He succumbed to the painful process and breathed his last.

 

What could possibly be good about what happened at Golgotha that day?  Was it not a tragedy, if not a gross miscarriage of justice, as many felt that an innocent Jesus had been condemned on trumped-up charges by the powers that be? Was there anything good about what occurred that Friday?

 

Some suggest that the name “Good Friday” earlier in history might have been “God’s Friday,” evolving  just as the greeting “God be with ye” became “Good-bye.” What humans, with good reason, might view as tragedy and injustice, from God’s perspective was somehow seen as good. Peter, who had denied Jesus just hours before the crucifixion, some fifty days or so later would declare that Jesus was “crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men… according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God” (Acts 2:23).

 

This was God’s plan? He caused this to happen?

 

What was God thinking?

 

God knew there was a problem: humanity, created in His image, was alienated, estranged from Him, caused by human rebellion, or to be theological, sin. Human sin affected all creation, and set humans against one another, resulting in the broken world we see all around us, and often as we look into our own lives and hearts. We all feel its effects to some degree, and all of us, in one way or another, are part of the problem. God decided to do something about the problem.

 

So He sent Jesus into the world, to share human life, to live in the mess of a broken world that did not function as God intended. Jesus came doing good, but all his life he was headed to that place outside Jerusalem where he would be put to death. Although executed by others, he gave himself to this death, and took the weight of human sin upon him, suffering the justice meant for all the rebels against God and His loving purposes. Jesus died in the place of all sinners, as he took all their guilt upon himself. By so doing, in the mystery of God’s self-giving love, he was able to satisfy the demands of justice, and work forgiveness, so that those alienated from God were reconciled to Him, if they would accept His offer. Their debt to God was paid, and now, because of Jesus’ painful death on the cross, all who desired had a way to draw near to God from whom they once were estranged, but now were reconciled. Jesus made possible forgiveness and new life and hope, a future in relationship with their Creator that would last beyond death itself, all because of what happened on that Friday.

 

You see, it was, and is, a “Good” Friday, after all.

 

If you would like to find out more about how Good Friday can be good for you, real and powerful in your life, more about forgiveness, new life and hope, we’d be glad to talk with you.

 

• Rev. Lawrence McErlean, for Anglican Church of the Resurrection, Cape Cod