Good Friday

Good Friday is a day of reflection about the darkness that happened the day of the crucifixion.  Join Rev. Dr. Aimee Copley Mulder as she reflects on John chapter 19.  May we rest in remembering Jesus' sacrifice and look to the darkness with a grateful heart.

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All glory to God. This is Amy Cockley Mulder. It's Holy Week. And so I'm so glad you chose to join me. Please continue to listen to my podcast every single day this week as we walk the last week of Jesus together. The last week where Jesus was on the earth before he was crucified. This Holy Week is a time for us to set aside moments where we really think about what Jesus did for us. Holy Week. Join me here at all glory to God.

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All that matters is you answer the door when Jesus comes to change your life. And I catch me. All the glory to God.

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This is Amy Cockley Mulder. It is Good Friday that's called Good because a great humongous sacrifice that changed all of humanity happened today. And my prayer for you today is that you will go to a local church or somewhere where you can reflect in prayer on the sufferings or the stations of the cross, the way that Jesus came to die for all of us. And the atonement at one moment with God, this relationship with God that we get from Jesus' sacrifice on the crucifixion is a beautiful thing. Plus, it makes the miracle of the resurrection, this miracle of resurrection, because I know everybody says on Good Friday, well, yeah, it's Good Friday, but Sunday's a coming. Well, I really want to encourage you today to not just go quickly to Sunday, not to just rush to Sunday. Let us sit in what happened on Friday. And because we've been reflecting on the book of John, I would like you to um I would like you on this day to turn with me to John chapter 19. And this is one of the trials that John that and this is one of the trials that Jesus had on this day before he was crucified. And this one is in front of Pilate. And Pilate is such an interesting character. So we're going to read some of it. So if you turn or you just want to listen to John chapter 19. So Pilate took Jesus and had him whipped. The soldiers, having braided a crown from thorns, set it on his head, threw a purple robe over him, and approached him with, Hail, King of the Jews. Then they greeted him with slaps in the face. So here is Jesus. He's under the Roman rule right now, and it is mockery, and this hail, King of the Jews, comes up many, many times in this passage. Pilate went back out again and said to them, I present him to you, but I want you to know I do not find him guilty of any crime. Just then Jesus came out wearing the thorn crown and purple robe. Pilate announced, Here he is, the man. When the high priest and police saw him, they shouted in a frenzy, Crucify, crucify. Pilate said, You take him, you crucify him. I find nothing wrong with him. The Jews answered, We have a law, and by that law he must die, because he claimed to be the Son of God. When Jesus heard this, he became even No, I'm sorry. When Pilate heard this, he became even more scared. He went back into the palace and said to Jesus, Where do you come from? Jesus gave no answer. Pilate said, You won't talk. Don't you know I have the authority to pardon you and the authority to crucify you? Jesus said, You haven't shred you. Jesus said, You haven't a shred of authority over me, except what has been given you from heaven. That's why the one who betrayed me to you has committed a far greater fault. At this, Pilate tried his best to pardon him, but the Jews shouted him down. Defy Caesar. When Pilate heard these words, he led Jesus outside. He sat down at the judgment seat at the area designated stone court. In Hebrew, it's called Galgatha. It was a prepper, it was the preparation day for Passover. The hour was noon. Pilate said to the Jews, Here is your king. They shouted back, kill him, kill him, crucify him. Pilate said, I am to crucify your king. The high priest answers, We have no king except Caesar. Pilate caved into their demand. He turned him over to be crucified. So this scene in Pilate from the first 19 verses of chapter 19 in the book of John, this scene is set. Pilate would love not to crucify Jesus. I mean, he'll have him whipped and beat and stuff, but he doesn't want to crucify him. And he says, This is your king, this is king of the Jews, you know. And maybe it's done in jest, maybe it's done to mock the whole thing, who knows? But here it is, this moment, here is your king. And then they say, Listen, our laws say that he says he's the son of God. And when he asks Jesus who he is, Jesus is silent. Jesus is not going to speak up in his defense. So Jesus is being crucified for being exactly who he said he was. Pilate tries to get out of it. You can see his posturing, you know, in the washed hands and all those kind of things. Pilate is this character that does not want to be doing his job. And his job right then is to keep the populace, you know, not crazy. And all of the all of the crowd is saying, crucify him, crucify him. This is the one, this is the one we want. Pilate does not have. So if we continue in verse 20, they took Jesus away. Carrying his cross, Jesus went out to the place called Skullhill, which in Hebrew is named Golgotha, where they crucified him, and with two others, one on each side, Jesus in the middle. Pilate wrote a sign and had it placed on the cross. It read Jesus the Nazarene, the King of the Jews. Many of the Jews read the sign because the place where Jesus was crucified was right next to the city. It was written in Hebrew, Latin, and Greek. The Jewish high priest objected. The Jewish high priest objected, Don't write, they said to Pilate, the King of the Jews. Make it, the man said, I am the king of the Jews. Pilate said, What I've written, I've written. When they crucified him, the Roman soldiers took his clothes and divided them up four ways, to each soldier a fourth. But his robe was seamless, a single piece of weaving, so they said to each other, Let's not tear it up, let's throw dice to see who gets it. This confirmed the scripture that said, They divided up my clothes among them and threw dice for my coat. The soldiers validated the scriptures. While the soldiers were looking after themselves, Jesus' mother, his aunt, Mary, the wife of Plopus, and Mary Magdalene stood at the foot of the cross. Jesus saw his mother and the disciple he loved standing near her. He said to his mother, Woman, here is your son, then to the disciple, here is your mother. From that moment the disciple accepted her as his own mother. Jesus, seeing that everything had been completed, so the scripture record might also be complete, then said, I'm thirsty. A jug of sour wine was standing by. Someone put a sponge soaked with the wine on a javelin and lifted it to his mouth. After he took the wine, Jesus said, It is finished. It's done. Complete. Bowing his head, he offered up his spirit. I hope you don't mind that I read that from the message version today. I just wanted the scripture to come close to us, and sometimes I really find that in the message paraphrase. It's a moment where Jesus gives up his spirit and says, It's finished, I've completed everything. I've done the task, I've done the job. And for Pilate, he just wants the people to know as he translates Jesus the Nazarene, the King of the Jews, in three different languages. He wants them to know this is who you are saying is deserves to die. And they're like, please, please don't write King of the Jews. He's only the one that said he was king of the Jews. Please don't do it. Pilate says, it is what I, what I've written. As John continues in his gospel, he makes sure that we know that there's a whole scene there, that there's these three women at the foot of the cross, and that he is now the disciple that Jesus loved. He is now the one that takes care of Mary for her life. Jesus isn't alone while he is crucified. He has two thieves on either side. We don't get that story in John. We get this picture of Pilate. Pilate saying, Are you sure? Do you want me to crucify him? And the mob, the crowd saying, Crucify him, crucify him. A lot of the same people that shouted Hosanna on the Sunday before. The question I have for you this good Friday, the question I'm asking myself, is who is Jesus to you? The Jews didn't like the title King of the Jews. They didn't like Jesus calling himself the Son of God. And I've said many times this week, very pointedly, that Jesus is 100% human and 100% God. How does that work? That's 200%. Well, I don't know how it works, but I do know that that's the faith identity that I believe in in Jesus. 100% human and 100% God. What does that mean to you? He could have called 10,000 angels to stop this trial. He could have spoken up with Pilate. Pilate was looking for any reason not to crucify him. He could have done many things to stop this madness. And he went to the cross silently with obedience that this had to happen. And over and over in this passage in John, it's well, so the scriptures would be complete. The men threw lots for his cloak, so the scriptures would be complete. He said he is thirsty, so the scriptures would be complete. The reason the scriptures needed to be complete is because Jesus was had a job to do, to completely surrender his body, his earthly body, so that we would always have a way to encounter God and come closer. Something that happened on the moment that Jesus' body gave up its spirit in human form, the curtain tore, the curtain tore that uh separated the holy from okay, the curtain tore that separated the holy of holies, the curtain tore. And what is important to know about that curtain tearing is this extremely heavy curtain that separated the really holy of holies, the Ark of the Covenant, to the rest of the temple. People had to go through cleansing rituals in order to get close to the Ark. It was it was a process, and you only did it once a year. I mean, it was this incredibly complex system to enter into the Holy of Holies. And we received, not in the Gospel of John, but we received this fact that the veil between the Holy of Holies and the rest of the people tore from the bottom up on the moment that Jesus died. Now, that is a very small miracle when you think of all the miracles that Jesus has done, of feeding the 5,000, of raising Lazarus from the dead, but that miracle happened so that you and I can encounter God, so that we can get closer to God. It's hard to reflect on all the sacrifice that Jesus went through. The nails through his wrist, the piercings in the side, the suffocation that happens with crucifixion. These are heavy things. I always it's always challenging to talk about the crucifixion with children and and not get them just completely terrified that this could happen to them, and just really try to explain the reasoning behind. But this moment I would like you to take this breath, I would like you to take and just say thank you. Thank you, Jesus, for being silent when you could have spoken. Thank you for not calling power down when you could have. Because I want to be I want to be living in the atonement and encounter God in the at one-ment with God. God's plan in this crucifixion, God's plan for this day where it's really about darkness and evil winning for the moment. God's plan was in place so that we could draw close to Him. And maybe you're like me and you've been fighting some feelings of I don't know, I think my feelings sometimes have been whining and why aren't people like this? And I got my feelings hurt. I've been feeling whiny the last couple of months. And I just want to let you know if you're like me and been whiny, if you've been complaining, if you've been whining about what isn't going right or what could go right or whatever it is, can I just tell you on this moment? On this day, just be silent. Take it in what God did for you. Listen to the hymns, were you there when you crucified my Lord? Listen to those he those hymns that are He died for you. Oh, how He loves us, how deep the Father's love for us, whatever hymn it is. And know that as you sing that, as you open up and let what Jesus went through on this day in, you will not be able to answer that question. Well, who are you to meet Jesus? And yes, Jesus is the King of the Jews, yes, Jesus is a hundred percent human and a hundred percent God, and he is also the one who died to save you from a world of darkness. He is also the one that came to die, but not to die forever. This is Good Friday, and I encourage you to spend time thinking about all the things that Jesus did, all the things he went through. But most of all today can I but most of all today, I just want you to take a breath and give Jesus' sacrifice a moment where you just overflow in gratitude. Because the same Jesus that was human and walked the earth, the same Jesus that rose people from the dead and was God among us is drawing close to you now, drawing close to you right now, and you can reach out his hand and encounter him today. God's grace and peace go with you on this good Friday. May you remember that the darkness we celebrate or honor or remember today does not get the last word. All glory to God.

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This is Amy Copley Mulder to God that's give all the glory because He gives us his life that's done. So it's done, it's the bad time. Give it up, so that's give all the glory to God.