Blessed Good Friday 2023

 

“But he was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed.”
Isaiah 53:5 ESV

“It is finished!” said Jesus as he breathed his last and gave up his spirit (John 19:30). This final act showed in stark relief how he willingly and unflinchingly took on the entire weight of all our sins upon himself as the sacrificial lamb of God after he had completed all the prophetic tasks required of him as the incarnate Christ.

In the previous night Jesus had instituted the Lord’s Supper during the Passover meal, allowed Judas Iscariot to leave and to betray him, brought all the other disciples to the Garden of Gethsemane for the agonizing prayer of surrender to God’s will, then his arrest by the Jewish leaders. In the wee hours of the night he experienced the thrice denial of Peter and the mocking by the Jewish guards. Then in the morning, the trial before the Jewish leaders and then with Pontius Pilate, the governor who allowed Jesus to be crucified. Jesus was flogged, carried the cross, and finally nailed on it at Golgotha.

He was naked and shamefully lifted up as the mocked “King of the Jews” and agonisingly separated from the Heavenly Father for the first time as he bore the sins of the world. Counter-culturally, he also asked his disciple John to take care of Christ’s own mother Mary before he died. What a Man, what a Saviour!

If you have yet to receive Jesus Christ as your personal Saviour and Lord, now is the time of salvation. Acknowledge your sins which nailed him to the cross and humbly surrender your life and heart to the Lamb of God so that you may walk in the newness of life for all eternity. Learn more of what it means to live your life as a follower of Christ. Shalom.

This article is contributed by Rev Jonathan Yao, EAST Resident Faculty who teaches on Leadership.

 

See below for My Last Day, an anime version taken largely from the crucifixion scene of the JESUS Film. It is viewed “through the eyes of a criminal who receives the same brutal crucifixion sentence as Christ. … a short film of regret, repentance and redemption.”