Devotional:

In Israel a few weeks ago, we visited Pilate’s Praetorium, where Jesus was mocked, beaten, tried and found guilty punishable by crucifixion. Charles Martin and his wife were part of our group that week. He recently released a book titled Son of Man: Retelling the Stories of Jesus. Charles captures moments from Jesus’s life in such a powerful and moving way. His vivid and emotional adaptation of Scripture allowed me to feel the weight of what happened to Jesus that night as he read an excerpt from Son of Man while we were sitting in the very spot where He was found guilty and beaten. On this Good Friday, I would love to share this with you. As you read or listen, imagine yourself there as we journey with Jesus to the cross.

“He is stumbling now. A trail of blood marks His serpentine path on the narrow street out of the city. The wood is heavy, but that’s not what’s crushing Him. Three-inch thorns are pressing into His skull. Much of the flesh has been removed from His back, neck, and sides. The local rulers want to make an example of Him. A public deterrent. A public execution on a well-traveled road just outside of town. They also want to shame Him, and they have. He’s completely naked.

By 9:00 a.m. He is outside the gate. On the outskirts. Out where they burn the trash. Somebody from the crowd spits on Him. Another plucks out a handful of His beard and reminds Him of all the ridiculous things He said leading up to this moment. A third suggests that if He really is who He says He is, then He should be able to do something about it. All talk. No action.

A group of fishermen watch from a distance. Pained faces. Breaking hearts. The road rises, and the bleeding carpenter stumbles to His knees. He tries to stand, falls again, and one of the soldiers comments how this could take all day. The soldier eyes a North African man in the crowd, points a sharp sword at the heavy wood, and commands, ‘Carry that.’ Simon steps onto the road, kneels, and black hands lift a bloody cross. Face to face with the condemned, he’s never seen anyone so marred. So grotesque. The two whisper words no one can hear as they slowly trudge forward.

Behind them the town is readying for a feast. The place is packed. A few hundred yards away in the temple, the high priest is preparing the sacrifice. Sharpening his knife on a stone. The morning incense wafts heavenward. Fresh showbread has replaced yesterday’s display. Simon carries the wood until the soldier tells him to drop it. When he does, soldiers slam the condemned Man onto the wood and stretch wide His arms. Two men hold His hand in place, one swings a hammer. The nail pierces His wrist, separating the bones, His screams echo off the enormous rocks that make up the city walls.

Out of respect for His nakedness, the women have gathered at a distance. His mother is inconsolable. A second woman stands nearby. Nobody really knows her name. All we know is that for the last 12 years, she has bled constantly. Making her an outcast. Defiled. Unable to enter the temple. She spent her life savings on a cure with no relief. Then she met the condemned. Clung to the “wings” of His shirt. Now she doesn’t bleed anymore.

The soldiers drive skinny spikes through the Man’s other hand and both feet; they lift the wood. Like Moses lifting the serpent in the wilderness. Gravity tears the flesh as they unceremoniously drop the cross into a hole. A sign above Him, written in Greek, Latin, and Hebrew, reads ‘King of the Jews.’ He is flanked by two common and dying men.

The crowd is larger than usual for a morning execution. A fact not unnoticed by the soldiers. A beggar named Bartimaeus watches through tears. Having heard of the trial and the invented charges, he walked the road up from Jericho. Some twenty miles through the night. A short time ago, the two met at the city gate. Bartimaeus had been begging because he was blind. Then he met the Man. Told Him, ‘I want to see.’ Ever since, Bartimaeus has had perfect vision-but now, he doesn’t like what he sees.

Nicodemus is here, as is a man named Lazarus, who stands quietly with his sisters. His story is of some renown because he died and had been decaying for four days when the criminal called him out of the cave. Even he has a tough time believing his own story. A young man. A former paralytic whose friends had lowered him through the roof of a crowded house where the criminal was staying, paces nervously nearby. A centurion stands quietly off to one side. Respectful. He’s not with this garrison. A man under authority, he’s come to pay his respects. Standing in the shadows, an angry fisherman waits impatiently. One hand on the hilt of his sword. As the hours pass, the other fishermen grow more vocal. Barabbas is here too. He is a murderer. Released just this morning from a death sentence. He stands in the shadows, in utter disbelief.

Fights break out in the crowd. The soldiers grow nervous. Reinforcements are summoned and sent. Above, up on the crosses, the three condemned men have a conversation. Something about paradise. One believes. One does not. Clustered on the road nearby, the soldiers play a game. Wagering for the Man’s clothes. Over the next few hours, the Man suspended on the middle cross pushes up with His legs, pulls with His arms, and tries to fill His lungs with air. Each breath harder than the last because His lungs are filling. He grows weaker.

It’s not long now.

Many in the crowd are weeping. They’ve torn their clothes. Mourning the leader of a failed rebellion. Earlier in the week, the entire town was ready to install the Man as ruler. Shouting. Waving palm branches. Throwing down their clothes. Praising the One to take on Rome. Even the rocks cried out. But the Man made outrageous claims. Didn’t back them up. A flash in the pan. Now He’s a nobody. Shamed. Rejected. Bruised. Crushed. Little more than a common, nameless criminal. A grain of wheat falling to the earth. The song of drunkards.

For the last three hours, an eerie darkness has spread across the earth.

His mother approaches, hanging on to the arm of one of the fishermen. The dying Man speaks to both. She buries her face in the other man’s shoulder. Her knees buckle and he holds her. She is shredded. They retreat, and the Man is thirsty. A soldier dips a sponge in something sour and holds it to the Man’s mouth, but He refuses. A scribe, a learned man, watches the hanging Man refuse the sponge and thinks to himself, Could it be…? As the words of the Psalm echo in his mind: ‘For my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink.’

With considerable effort, the Man lifts His chin off His chest and scans the crowd. His breathing grows shallower. He is drowning. Summoning His last ounce of energy, the Man pushes up one last time and screams heavenward. A shadow falls across Him, shrouding Him in darkness. Even God has forsaken Him.

Here, for the first time, Jesus knows something He’s never known. And it is this “knowing” that kills Jesus. Yes, the crucifixion would have eventually done the job, but Jesus, Savior of the world, dies with a broken heart. A shattered soul. And the autopsy will show that the King dies of the deepest, most painful wound of the human soul.

Rejection.

The fluid in His lungs has reached the tipping point. Jesus has but one breath remaining. What will He do with it? He arches His back, tightens His lips, and speaks a singular word. John tells us, “…He said, ‘Tetelastai!’ And bowing His head, He gave up His spirit.” The earth trembles and shakes with angry violence. The stones of the temple are rocked. The curtain tears in two.

In the temple, the high priest slices the throat of the lamb and catches the warm blood in a basin. On the road outside the gate, the condemned Man exhales, dies, and gives up His spirit. ‘It is finished.’ ‘Tetelestai!’ The final word spoken on earth by the King of Kings.

The crowd huddles in hushed silence. Lightning flashes and spiderwebs across the sky. The air turns cold. Nearby, a soldier shakes his head, whispering something about the Son of God.

With little more to see, the soldiers disperse the crowd. The criminal hangs alone. Dead eyes still open. The life that had been there moments ago is gone.

Blood still drips off the toes of His left foot. The words of Moses echo: ‘For the life of the flesh is in the blood, and I have given it to you upon the altar to make atonement for your souls.’

The lifeless Man hangs at an odd angle, and His bones seem out of joint. Off to one side, His mother won’t leave. She is screaming at the top of her lungs. Abruptly, a soldier shoves a spear into the chest cavity of the dead Man, and water and blood spill out from the hole. The splashing sound echoes.

On a cross on the earth below, the Son of Man dies. Innocent bloodshed. Payment made. In full. Mankind redeemed. Forever.”

—

Excerpts from “Son of Man” by Charles Martin