It was the most horrible day in the history of the world.
No event has been more tragic and no future event will match it. No surprise attack, no political assassination, no financial collapse, no military invasion, no atomic bombs or nuclear war, no catastrophic terrorist acts, no hunger or large-scale epidemic?even the slave trade, ethnic extinction, or decades-long wars of religion cannot overshadow the darkness of that day.
- No suffering has been so displaced.
- No human being has ever been treated so unjustly.
- For no other human being has ever been more praiseworthy; no one else has lived without sin.
- No other human being was God Himself.
- No horror is worth what happened on a hill on the outskirts of Jerusalem nearly two millennia ago.
And we always call this day? Friday
For Jesus, the most horrible day was in the custody of the Romans in the courtroom of the governor; his own people had handed him over to the oppressive empire. What united the Jewish nation was the desire of a promised leader of the lineage of his great and beloved King David. David himself and the prophets who came before and after him told the people that an even greater king would come; However, when he finally arrived, his people, the same nation that ordered his collective life around this king’s expectation, did not see him as who he was. They rejected their own Messiah.
In his day, David had seen the heathen conspire against him as anointed of God. Why do Gentiles get angry and people imagine vanities?Do the kings of the earth rise, and do the princes conspire against the Lord and his anointed?(Salt 2. 1 -2). Now, however, David’s words had become a reality for his greatest descendant, when Jesus’ people turned against him to deliver him to Rome.
Judas was not the first to conspire against Jesus, but he was the first to deliver him (Mt 26:15), the language of responsibility that the Gospels often repeat.
Plots against Jesus began long before Judas realized that money could be embezzled, which began as the maneuver to entangle Jesus in his words (Mt 22:15), quickly became a conspiracy to kill him (Mt 26:4). The love of money made him a first strategic domino to deliver Jesus to death.
Jesus saw it coming. He announced to his disciples, “Here we have gone up to Jerusalem, and will the Son of Man be given to the chief priests and scribes?”(Mt 20:18). At first, the traitor had no name, now he leaves the inner circle. Jesus, composed of the twelve. One of his closest friends will turn against him (Salt 41. 9) and for the price of a slave (Zc 11. 12-13): thirty silver coins.
However, Judas did not act alone. Jesus Himself foretold it: the chief priests and the scribes?Would they sentence him to death and hand him over to the Gentiles to despise him, whip him, and crucify him?(Mt 20: 18-19). And everything went as planned. ” So the Jewish escort, the commander and the guards?”They arrested him and handed him over to Pilate (Jn 18:12,30). How would Pilate confess to Jesus: “It is your own people and the chief priests who have given you to me?(Jn 18:35).
On the day the Messiah chosen by God was rude and executed unjustly, the chief human agents of evil were the formal officers of God’s chosen people; guilt would not be limited to them, but were given much and would be attributed much to them. (Lk 12:48). Jesus was clear to Pilate as to who was the most guilty: “Does he who gave me the greatest sin have?(Jo 19:11).
Even Pilate was able to say why the Jewish rulers did this against Jesus: “Did you understand that out of envy the chief priests had delivered him?(Mk 15. 10). They saw Jesus win the favor of the people and feared at the perspective. of the collapse of his own influence (Jn 12:19). The rise of Jesus’ notoriety posed such a threat to his fragile sense of authority, with the privilege that accompanied him, that liberal priests and conservative scribes came together to cooperate.
In a web of evil, the culprits fulfill their complementary roles: Jewish leaders led the plan, Judas acted as a catalyst, and Pilate also had his role to play, albeit passively: he would try to dispel the guilt from his conscience by publicly washing his hands. in all cases, but could not get rid of the problem.
As a Roman authority on the site, he could have put an end to the injustice he saw before him. I knew he was vile. Luke and John record three explicit examples of Pilate saying, “Can’t I find guilt in him?(Lk 23:14-15, 20, 22; Jn 18. 38; 19,4, 6). In such a scenario, a fair leader would not only justify the accused, but also protect him from further harm on the part of his accusers; however, ironically, not criticizing Jesus became the cause of Pilate’s guilt when he bowed to what seemed to be politically convenient at the time.
First, Pilate tried to negotiate. He offered to release a known criminal, but people insisted on his deception, pressured by his leaders, and demanded that the culprit be released. Now Pilate was trapped. He washed his hands like a spectacle and let Barabbas go; and, after whipping Jesus, did you give him up to be crucified?(Mt 27. 26; Mc 15:15). Pilate’s involvement may have been more reactive than that of conspiratorial Jewish leaders, but when did he hand it over to his will?(Lk 23:25), joined them in their wickedness.
The people of the village did their part, too. They were encouraged by their accomplice officers. They called for the release of a man they knew was guilty instead of an innocent man. The Apostle Peter would preach correctly in Acts 3:13-15 as he addressed the people of Jerusalem:
Jesus, whom you betrayed and denied before Pilate, when he decided to set you free, you, however, denied the Holy and the Just and asked for a murderer, so you killed the Author of Life, that God rose from the dead?
As the early Christians of Jerusalem prayed, “Why did they really gather in this city against your holy servant Jesus, whom you agiste, Herod and Pontius Pilate, with the heathen and people of Israel?(AT4. 27). Neither Herod nor the Romans are innocent either. Finally, in surprising action, Jews and Gentiles worked together to kill the Author of Life.
And we soon discovered that it wasn’t just Judas, Pilate, the leaders and the people involved. We see our own wickedness as we look through the darkness of this Friday in the light of God’s goodness: we renounce it. Did Christ die for our sins? (1C 15. 3) Was Jesus delivered because of our transgressions?(Romans 4. 25). Did he give himself to our sins? (Gal 1. 4). Carrying in his body, on the wood, our sins? (1Pe 2. 24). What we hear out of wickedness, God has done well.
God was working, doing his greatest good in our most terrible evil. Above and below the spiraling evil of Judas, the Jewish leaders, Pilate, the people, and all forgiven sinners, God’s hand stands firm, never blamed for evil. , always acting for our ultimate good. As Peter was soon to preach, was Jesus “delivered by the certain purpose and prescience of God”?(Acts 2:23). And how did the early Christians pray: “Herod and Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles and people of Israel [did] what your hand and purpose foresredetermined?”(At. 4. 27-28).
Never has Joseph’s banner shone with such truth as that day: “You, in fact, have the intention of evil against me; but did God do something good?” (Gen. 50. 20). And if that day, every day, not only the fingerprints of sinners resolved to evil are manifested, but also the sovereign hand of God doing it for good, because we cannot raise the flag of Joseph over the great tragedies and horrors of our lives. lives, since God himself did not forgive his own Son, but abandoned him for all of us, will he not give us everything with him in grace? for our eternal good (Romans 8:32).
God wrote on the worst day in the history of the world, and there is no day, a week, a month, a year, or a life of suffering, no trauma, no loss, no momentary or chronic pain, that God cannot write?For you in Christ Jesus.
Satan and the sinful man intended this Friday for evil, but God did it for good, and that is why we call him Good Friday.
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1: Here is a word game, because the English equivalent of what we call Good Friday or Good Friday is literally “Good Friday”, literally “Good Friday”. N. doR.