Crucifixion Friday and Resurrection Sunday

Crucifixion Friday and Resurrection Sunday

The most holy time

Where the term 'Good Friday' came from  is unclear, some believing it was a corruption of 'God's Friday' some place in time. That said there is no doubt that Crucifixion Friday is a more accurate expression.

For it was the day on which God's only begotten Son was beaten and nailed to a tortuous instrument of death putting on display the greatest demonstration of God's love creation will ever see.

What is disguised in religious symbolism is the depth of physical and spiritual suffering the LORD endured, paying the price for the sins of all mankind.

His suffering is usually portrayed with a sanitized depiction of a man with arms and feet hanging on a cross, perhaps with a crown of thorns on His head and a few trickles of blood on His forehead. Clothed in a clean and tidy cloth about His loin.

That image speaks nothing of the real horrors of that terrible day the LORD suffered for not only our forgiveness but for our complete and total healing.

Before the cross as we are told in the book of Isaiah  Many were horrified at what happened to him. But everyone who saw him was even more horrified because he suffered until he no longer looked human. He was wounded and crushed because of our sins; by taking our punishment, he made us completely well. (CEV)

Words can not properly convey what happened to the only sinless man to walk this earth on that day. He was beaten so badly that he no longer looked like a man. His beard had been torn from His face, one inch thorns had been driven into his head and his back had the flesh so badly beaten and torn, His ribs were exposed. His entire body looked like on massive bruise and He no longer even looked human.

Because of this vicious, horrible beating at the hands of wicked and sinful men, there is no reason that those who believe should endure or put up with sickness or disease. The LORD paid the price in full at the whipping post.

From that place He was forced to carry His cross outside the city to the hill of Golgotha (the place where Goliath's head had been placed). Along the way a man from the crowd was forced to help Him as He staggered under the weight.

Finally on the hill, he was stretched out and iron spikes were driven through His hands and His feet and His broken body was raised on the cross. The Roman cross was the perfect instrument of death, as a man would usually live for three tortuous days before wanting to die, to relieve the suffering it inflicted.

The LORD hung on that cross for six to eight hours as He became sin for all of mankind. He prayed to His Father to forgive those doing this to Him, saying they knew not what they were doing.

He also demonstrated to the thief hanging beside Him that believing in Him forgave the thief's sins and gave him admission to heaven.

Finally the moment of indescribable anguish came upon the LORD as His Father turned His face from Him and withdrew from Him. He cried out to His Father " Father, Father, why have you forsaken me", this being the first time Jesus was separated from GOD.

He declared 'it is finished' as He gave up His spirit into the hands of His Father as He descended into the very pit of hell.

That is what happened on Crucifixion Friday, otherwise known as good Friday.