The morning on Friday of what we call Passion Week saw the end of the sham trials of Jesus.
The verdict from Roman Governor Pilate was death by crucifixion.
The Romans had perfected this horrible method of capital punishment, having refined it to the point where it normally took around three days of anguish before the condemned would finally suffocate.
Hanging with one’s arms outstretched on a cross put tremendous outward pressure on the lungs, causing them to be fully expanded. A person would have to push up on the nails through their feet to compress the lungs to expel the oxygen, then slump down to inhale again.
Every breath of air involved extreme pain in the feet pushing oneself up followed by extreme pain in the wrists after slumping down. Eventually the muscles in the arms and legs would cramp causing additional pain.
Slowly, ever so slowly, a person would lose all their strength, being unable to push up, eventually dying by suffocation.
To expedite the process, a legionnaire could use a steel rod to break a person’s legs thus making it impossible to push up and expel the air and in turn not be able to draw another breath. Suffocation would follow with minutes.
Jesus did not need three days and did not need his legs broken. He chose to die somewhere around six hours after going on the cross.
After that, he was placed in a borrowed tomb, with a heavy stone rolled over the entrance, a seal placed on the stone, and Roman Legionnaire soldiers placed as guards.
Why do we call this Good Friday, when we commemorate the day our Savior was brutally executed?
The reason so very simple. That horrible painful, shameful death paid the penalty for your sin and my sin. Therefore it is a good, really really good day.
In the words of the hymn There is a Fountain, that brutal death produced a fountain filled with Jesus’ blood that washes away my sin and your sin, with that sin permanently removed.
However, the brutalized, stone cold, dead Rabbi laying in the tomb is the end of the story on Friday.
But it is not the end of the story!
Living Room Session
The typical lyrics:
There is a fountain filled with blood,
Drawn from Immanuel’s veins,
And sinners plunged beneath that flood
Lose all their guilty stains:
Lose all their guilty stains,
Lose all their guilty stains;
And sinners plunged beneath that flood
Lose all their guilty stains.The dying thief rejoiced to see
That fountain in His day;
And there have I, though vile as he,
Washed all my sins away:
Washed all my sins away,
Washed all my sins away;
And there have I, though vile as he,
Washed all my sins away.Dear dying Lamb, Thy precious blood
Shall never lose its pow’r,
Till all the ransomed church of God
Are safe, to sin no more:
Are safe, to sin no more,
Are safe, to sin no more;
Till all the ransomed church of God
Are safe, to sin no more.E’er since by faith I saw the stream
Thy flowing wounds supply,
Redeeming love has been my theme,
And shall be till I die:
And shall be till I die,
And shall be till I die;
Redeeming love has been my theme,
And shall be till I die.When this poor, lisping, stamm’ring tongue
Lies silent in the grave,
Then in a nobler, sweeter song,
I’ll sing Thy pow’r to save:
I’ll sing Thy pow’r to save,
I’ll sing Thy pow’r to save;
Then in a nobler, sweeter song,
I’ll sing Thy pow’r to save.
Grace Community Church
Revised lyrics with an alternate melody:
Magherafelt Free Presbyterian Church
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