Good Friday Meditation, April 3, 2026

It wasn’t supposed to end like this. 

Just five days ago, they crowded around him, cheered into him as he rode into town triumphantly.  Crowds waving palms and shouting, as the prophet Zechariah foretold: 

Rejoice greatly, O daughter Zion! Shout aloud, O daughter Jerusalem! Lo, your king comes to you; triumphant and victorious is he, humble and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey. (Zechariah 9:9)  

Now five days later they are now they were scattered and silent at this unexpected end of his journey. 

One by one they had abandoned him: 

Judas leaving their final meal together, leaving early to betray him. 

The rest of them running for their lives from the garden where he was arrested. 

Peter, following to the high priest’s house, but denying he was a disciple  

Now just a few remain with him as he hangs on the cross, 

The women standing, at the foot of the cross, 

with his mother Mary,  

and the disciple Jesus loved- 

Imagine Mary’s pain watching her son die- 

every parent who’s lost a child knows that pain.  

She wishes it was her instead of him,  

each stroke of the hammer driving the nails into his hand, his feet,  

-the trusting hand she held, the baby feet she kissed -  

was a sword piercing her to her very soul. 

The women there share Mary’s a pain. 

This is a woman’s lot -to stand watch in the dying hours,  

to wash and prepare him for burial. 

A bit further away are the chief priests and religious leaders,  

witnessing this death, satisfaction on their faces. 

They have done their duty -  

the threat to the faith and the people is dying on that cross. 

Joseph of Arimathea is with them,  

Nicodemus is there too,  

their faces saddened and puzzled. 

It wasn’t supposed to end like this. 

One by one, the disciples, 

then the women, 

made their way back to the upper room, 

an ordinary room now sacred to them  

because it’s the last time they shared a meal with him,  

It was their last happy hours together. 

Peter, comes in last. 

He’s unusually quiet,  

remote. 

They don’t know he’s filled with shame 

filled with guilt.  

They begin to talk. 

He said he was going to the Father’s house 

to prepare a place for them (John 14:1-6),  

- surely dying on a cross was not what he meant, 

was it? 

Could it be? 

 Why did he die? 

When will he come back? 

How can a man defeat death,  

only God can do that… 

does that mean  

they have been in the presence of God? 

He said he would come back and take them to the place prepared for them. 

How does someone come back from such a death? 

What kind of place does his death prepare for them? 

And would they even want to go? 

He said they couldn’t follow now,  

but that they would know the way,  

because he was the way, the truth and the life. 

He said that no one had greater love 

than to lay down his life for a friend. 

And now he was dying. (John 15:13) 

He said to love one another 

as he loved them. (John 15:12) 

How could they love each other like that? 

He promised the Holy Spirit would come, 

and remind them of all he said,  

and teach them everything. (John 14:26) 

Where is that Spirit? 

They want to make sense of this. 

He told them to not be troubled, (John 14:1) 

that he left his peace with them,  

that they should not be troubled or afraid. (John 14:27) 

They have no peace. 

They are troubled, 

They are very afraid. 

How could they not be so? 

It wasn’t supposed to end like this! 

What they didn’t know was that this wasn’t the end. 

It was the beginning 

A beginning waiting quietly in the tomb 

For the dawn of resurrection