The Journey of Holy Week: Friday

Mark 15:1-47

Under the bright full moon, the disciples continue to follow Jesus to an olive grove at the foot of the Mount of Olives. It is in this garden that the new Adam begins to reverse the effects of the first Adam's rebellion. Amid the shadows of tortured olive tree branches, the chosen son of Eve wrestles to submit himself to God's will. Only a few days ago, Jesus had told the disciples that God could move mountains, that all things are possible to the one who believes. But now, as Jesus prays, there is no answer.

Here, alone in the garden, Jesus is overwhelmed by a sickness unto death—a mental and spiritual agony so deep it threatens to eclipse his vision of the Father's good plan. The hour of darkness has come. The weight of the world's sin lies heavy upon him: the bitterness of the betrayal by his beloved friend Judas, that one lost and confused lamb who will not be found; the faithlessness and desertion of his disciples; the suffering and cruelty he is about to endure. His priestly office will be rejected by the religious leaders, his kingship mocked by the Roman officials; he will know the humiliation of false accusation. For a brief moment in time Jesus tastes utter despair, and this is only the beginning of the cross that awaits him.

Sometime in these early morning hours of Friday, the fourteenth of Noon, he is arrested and taken into custody. By the time he is handed over to Pilate, the busiest and most important day of the year is already underway. It is the time for preparation, when the priests must slaughter the sacrificial animals for the evening meal. On this day, long ago, Israel was to prepare hastily for their departure from Egypt. Now, centuries later, thousands of animals need to be slaughtered to provide for the enormous crowds. In order to complete the work before twilight, the priests have begun a tradition of starting the sacrifices at noon. At exactly noon, just as the shadow on the sundial becomes a thin line, the priests begin the work. Ironically; it is just at this moment that, like the penultimate plague on Egypt, darkness covers the land. The shadow on the sundial vanishes. By now the true Passover Lamb is being sacrificed.

Jesus has been taken outside the gates of the holy city and crucified naked and facing away from the temple, having been proclaimed unclean. The Roman officials have displayed him, along with two other criminals, in utter shame before the great crowds, who go in and out of the city as he bears the horrors of history and the deepest anguish of the world.

The gospels say nothing about the three hours of darkness that engulf the land as Jesus suffers crucifixion.

At three o'clock, as the altar of the temple runs with blood, Jesus dies on the cross. Puzzled by the strange signs occurring around them, the priests work hard to finish the sacrifices by sunset. The first day of Unleavened Bread is about to begin. A few of Jesus' followers remain by the cross, gazing upon the disfigured body of the one who made humankind in his image.

Only later will they come to understand that in this cross humanity's image is restored. This image had united the spiritual and earthly realms—the breath of life inhabiting the dust of the earth. From the beginning, the human person was, in its very nature, a marriage of the heavenly and the earthly. But heaven and earth were violently torn apart by our first parents' sin. Stretched out upon the cross, between heaven and earth, Jesus has reconciled the two realms in his own torn body. 'This was the King of the Jews—not the king the disciples were expecting, but a humble and gracious king; one whom the disciples, and eventually the whole world, would come to embrace. It was in this cross that the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, with its deadly fruit, would become the Tree of Life, with healing for all nations.