The Good Friday service had taken me to the cross. The music. The message. The unhurried moments. The harmonies of “O, the wonderful cross…” ringing out…There was nothing wonderful about the process of Christ’s execution, and it’s impossible to fathom what it was like to witness it.
The first time I knew pain that came anywhere near what Christ’s followers must’ve experienced was the searing separation I felt when Dad died. I’d never known a pain as awful as that, and there’s no way it comes close to what they felt. They were losing a friend, first of all, and His mom was losing a son. This was a man they’d spent countless hours with, and besides the magnificence of Him being God, He was their family. They had eaten, traveled, and ministered together day after day after day.
And they…. Watched. Him. Die.
Not a he’s been sick, he’s growing weaker, and he may not make it kind of death (as if that’s somehow easier). No. A cruel, hateful, gruesome, agonizing departure of someone they loved. Really, really loved.
I imagine Jesus’ mother bent over in agony, wrenching sobs wracking her body as the dirt beneath her turned to mud. She had carried and then cared for this man for all His earthly days, and in those moments, she could only stand back and watch. All of that would have been bad enough.
Everyone knows losing someone you love is torture. But this friend, this son was also their hope. If they’d walked with Him, left all and followed Him, they didn’t do it because He was a nice guy. They followed because with everything in them, they believed He was the Messiah. He was the one who would finally (finally!) rescue them from Rome and so much more.
And there He hung… on a Roman cross, no less.
And there the disciples and Jesus’ mom stood, the shocking reality settling in. I remember again how the aftermath of Dad’s death was stunning, exhausting, and excruciatingly sad, and I imagine the disciples and Jesus’ mom feeling about that way.
When everyone went home that night, as they tossed and turned in fitful sleep, I see them utterly spent with hearts ripped in shreds and hope swallowed in the blackest night they’d ever known.
