Black Friday

Today is Good Friday, but I prefer to think of it as Black Friday.  We remember Jesus’ death.  It is humbling to think about Jesus dying for us, that our sin made it necessary for Him to suffer, but it is also a time to realize how great God’s love is for humanity.  

We have the ability to step back from the situation and view His death with understanding and also a foreknowledge of His resurrection, but the disciples and Mary, Jesus’ mother, didn’t have this.  When Mary stood at the cross and observed Jesus’ cruel death and listened as Jesus released power of attorney of her life to His disciple, John, she didn’t have the insight we have.  

Mary has always fascinated me.  Her Jewish life was flipped upside down and her faith was rattled to the core.   When she said, “may it be to me as you have said”, to the angel announcing that she would be the mother of the Messiah, I don’t think the cross was what she signed up for.  When she and Joseph went to their son’s baby dedication and Simeon said a sword would pierce Mary’s soul, I don’t think this was the sword that Mary understood.

Jesus rocked his follower’s world.  He rocked His family’s world.  Some scholars believe that when Mary and Jesus’ brothers came to see Jesus in Mark chapter 3, they were going to try to discourage Him from His radical teaching and the fact that Mary was at the cross alone and being turned over to John to oversee her care, shows that probably Jesus’ brothers deserted His teaching and remained in their comfortable belief system.

Mary was not only losing Jesus, but when she abandoned her former religious system it probably cost her the relationships she had with her other sons.  Jesus later appeared to his brother, James, in 1 Corinthians 15 and James became a follower because we see him in the upper room and as a leader of the church in Jerusalem, but at that moment at the cross, Mary must have felt very hopeless and alone.

The disciples scattered, their sense of comradeship was sunk, plans for a bright future caved in and it was a dark time.  Their faith was severely tested and none of them aced the test except maybe John and most failed the test miserably.   So to add to their grief of the loss of Jesus, there is the shame of their own personal weakness.

But that was not the end of the story and Jesus knew it—in the midst of all the chaos and grief, shame, guilt, and fear and all the other emotions associated with loss of someone dearly loved, Jesus knew what was coming.  He knew there would be a resurrection.  He suffered and died for the weakness of humanity, but that was not the end of the story.