Holy Friday

As we awake this morning and reflect on this day being Holy Friday or Good Friday we realize that while we slept Jesus endured trials by religious leaders, political leaders, condemned to death, beaten, tortured and humiliated by soldiers, made to carry his own cross and by 9am or so he is nailed to the cross.

He wears a crown of thorns painfully pushed down upon his head as soldiers gamble for his robes, his mother, family and followers that dared, watched on in utter devastating grief as life drained from his body. By 3pm or so he utters the words," It Is Finished" and by 6pm he is laid in the tomb.
 

His followers expected a different outcome, they believed he had come to save them not die on a cross. Although they had been told he would lay his life down for mankind and be raised again, they never really grasped the whole story. 

Today we know the outcome, we know the victory that takes place in 3 days time, but they did not. For them it was painful grief beyond compare, it yielded all the deepest emotions of early grief, Denial, Anger, Blame, Shame, Remorse, Abandonment, and totally feeling lost. LOST & ALONE.
 

Judas can't live with his betrayal and commits suicide. The disciples scatter and weep. His family returns home to grieve. It's not a GOOD day, It is said that Good Friday also means Holy Friday and I actually prefer that name for this day, because the holiest of things occurred. "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten son, that whosoever believes in him shall not parish but have everlasting life" John 3:16
Friday's events are recorded in Matthew 27:1-62, Mark 15:1-47, Luke 22:63-23:56, and John 18:28-19:37