I have imagined the reactions and thought processes of those people involved in the Good Friday and Easter narrative.
I hope that it will assist you to meditate on these events with fresh thoughts.
We
had followed Jesus, the Chosen One, as He had travelled around Galilee – giving
out to Him what He required out of what we had. It did not matter whether we
were rich or poor, each of us gave according to what God had blessed us with.
As He had given us the Good News, the least we could do is share of the earthly
goods we had. In the hands of the Rabbi, there was always more than enough
resources to go around.
It
was a privilege that we followed him down to Jerusalem so that we could welcome
Him into the city. We sang out our ‘Hosanna’s and ‘’Blessed is the One who
comes in the name of the Lord’. There was an expectation that the promises of
the coming kingdom would finally be coming true.
We
were then so shocked to hear that Jesus had been arrested, but there was
nothing that we could do but support Him still. It was with a steely resolution
that we lined the way as He carried His cross from Pilate’s palace to the grim
place of execution.
There
was despair in the crowd as it was felt that the hopes and dreams that we had
seemed to vanish like the morning mist. We started to weep and wail, almost as
much for ourselves as for Him. In His struggle up the street with the heavy
burden of the cross on His back, His primary concern was not for Himself but
for us. He counselled us to save our tears for greater calamities would fall on
us when Jerusalem would be ransacked in the future.
We
too walked up the street where He had dragged His cross to the place where the
soldiers nailed Him to His beam. We stood together under His upraised body- united
in our bereavement, wondering if we had committed our lives to the right cause.
There had been leaders of revolutions in the past as there would be in the
future, so had we followed yet another failed attempt to change the world? As
His breath exhaled for the last time, there seemed to be an air of finality –
the end of the journey.
As
a matter of respect, we went to the tomb on the third day to embalm the body of
the Rabbi whose teaching was powerful and whose life was cut short. It appeared
that His influence would be limited to our small country. However, we were
surprised by two angels in radiant garments declaring ‘Why are you looking for
the living among the dead?’ ’
Jesus
had fulfilled His promise to conquer sin and death. The Promised One was alive,
still giving us more than we could give to Him – bringing surety to replace our
uncertainty, impacting the whole world beyond what we could possibly imagine.
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