Consequence?

Just a quick thought.

There have been four earthquakes and two volcanic eruptions in approximately a 3 month time span. That's quite a lot of violent seismic activity in a relatively short space of time.

It's often said that if a butterfly flaps its wings, it can affect the weather in a totally different part of the world; it's called the butterfly effect, part of chaos theory. Now, i don't claim to know a lot about chaos theory but, if a little butterfly can have that much influence on a global scale, what kind of effect do these have...?


They're man made islands just off the beaches of Dubai.

With my limited knowledge of chaos theory and global seismic activity, I've been pondering: Arrogantly placing a substantial amount of land in a place where there wasn't any, so you can have you're own little piece of paradise, just cos you can... That is going to have some effect on the rest of the planet surely?!

Like I said, just a thought.

Any minute now...

There was Evening and there was morning...

Ever since the beginning of time, God has operated on a different timescale to the civilised western world. We calculate days from Midnight til Midnight. 00:00 to 23:59.

The Jewish day begins at sunset and ends at the following sunset. Which means technically any minute now... Jesus is Raised from the Dead!

Any time between now and when the sun comes up is that mysterious and wondrous resurrection moment! How gloriously paradoxical that at the darkest point of the day the Light of the World is reignited and raised to shine brighter than ever...

Any minute now...

Saturday Grief.

A heavy depression lingered in the house that morning.

The chaos and tragic activity of Friday were now merely shadows in their memories. His words spoken through heartbreak and torture on the cross still resonated in their ears. Everytime they closed their eyes a mental image of him hanging there -covered in his own blood, scratched up by the flogging, nails through his hands and feet, dead- that image was burned into their minds.
They hardly spoke to each other. Numbed by this deep sense of loss. An occasional teary glance caught the eye of another and that one look said everything; He's gone. He's really gone. They couldn't stop thinking about it. Replaying the events of yesertday over and over again. And it wasn't as if they could do anything to take their minds off of what had happened.

It was now the Sabbath, the day of rest. It was prohibited by Jewish law to do any work. They weren't allowed to go away to get away from it all because the law stipulated that you couldn't travel on the Sabbath. They were stuck in the house they were staying in with nothing to do but ponder yesterday and what it meant.
Often at Easter we tend to skip over Saturday. We remember Thursday and the meal. We briefly pause to remember what happened on Friday but we're all too quick to say '...but Sunday's coming!' Friday is too depressing, too violent, too heavy, too hopeless for us to want to hang around Friday. Jesus Died. He was actually physically, medically dead; not just out of shot or taking a breather, deceased, passed away. Friday hurts.
We certainly don't want to mope around in the heartbreak and grieving turmoil of Saturday. We don't want to be forced to contemplate and focus on Friday because the law permits us to do nothing else. We want Sunday! And in our haste to get to Sunday we forget Saturday, with all it's emptiness and regret; with all its why's and what-if's.

But if we allow ourselves to stop on Saturday; if we give ourselves a chance to grieve with a group of Disciples who didn't know Sunday was coming; if we pause just long enough to feel the heartbreak that Jesus is Dead on Saturday, we let ourselves sink to the lowest point. And from that lowest point what happens tomorrow is even more of a mysterious wonder!

Jesus is Dead.

They had been intriuged by his teaching.
They had dared to come close to him.
When he told to quit their jobs and go touring with him, the dared to do it.

They had seen him heal people from diseases. He had made blind people see and cripples danced after an encounter with him. They'd seen him do unbelieveable things. He'd multiplied some bread rolls and a couple of fish to feed thousands of people. They'd seen him walk on water!

But he was so normal. He was one of the lads.
He knew how to have a laugh. But when he was serious, wow, he could cut right to the heart.
He taught about loving the unlovable and he practiced what he preached.
He had time for everybody. When he looked at you, you know you had his undivided attention.

Last Sunday they had been with him. He rode into town like he owned the place. They treated him as if he was the king. People were going as far as saying he was the Messiah.

They were daring to believe in him.
Last night they were eating and drinking with him. He was quieter than usual, but he was still the best friend they'd ever had. But when the stuff hit the fan, they all ran. They just left him...

Now Jesus was dead.

Were the last three years a complete waste of time?
What about everything he'd said about the Kingdom of God? Was it all made up?
What about everything they'd dared to believe about him? What were they meant to do now, eh?

Everyone recognised them. Everyone knew they used to hang out with Jesus. Now he's dead. What are people gonna think? What a bunch of losers.

Jesus is dead. The disciples are gutted, absolutely gutted. Friday night is a dark, dark place to be... and Saturday doesn't look much brighter from here. Come to think of it... from a disciple's point of view... Sunday looks pretty bleak too.

It is finished.

It’s dark.
It’s about three in the afternoon. It’s not meant to be dark.

Instantly we know that there is something mysterious going on. Something other-worldly is occurring on this rugged landscape outside Jerusalem. And out of the darkness Jesus speaks

“My God”

My God? This is Jesus, the Son crying out to his father and yet he switches to a cry of desperation to his God.

Do you ever have those times when you’re feeling so hurt, so low, so depressed even, that you don’t ‘feel’ like praying but at the same time you know you need to get something off your chest and direct it at God? Sometimes it’s useful to use somebody else’s prayer, someone else’s words to express the pain you’re going through.

He’s quoting Psalm 22 at this point so, maybe, the agony he is enduring as part of this divine plan is too much to bear for his human emotions and he relies on the liturgy, the church songs, of the day. In his humanity he uses someone else’s prayer of pain and desolation to cry out to God.

“Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?” - “My God, Why have You abandoned me?”

Even in that simple cry, those around him still missed the point – they thought he was calling Elijah the prophet to come and bail him out. For three years they had followed him around and it never quite clicked for them in their minds or hearts what he was saying, and even at his death they didn’t get it.

Then, ‘with a loud cry', Jesus breathed his last… On the surface this just seems like a tragic end of a great life. But there is something a little more puzzling than just Jesus dying. Death by crucifixion usually came in the form of exhaustion and suffocation, the victim unable to raise his body enough for the lungs to draw in air. The breaking of the victim’s legs was a way of quickening the process. Ordinarily, the victim would pass out, unconscious due to lack of oxygen, before death occurred. And all this would take place often over an extended period of time. It was known for some to endure days on a cross before dying.

So how was it that Jesus cried out in a loud voice and died after just six hours? Again, perhaps the answer lies within the mystery surrounding this episode.Those around not seeing the wood for the trees. There was more going on at Calvary than just the death of an innocent Jewish carpenter turned rabbi.

Christ on the cross was the substitute for mankind in a salvation plan brilliantly conceived within the Godhead.

Jesus Christ - God the Son - in his 100% humanity would take the place of mankind, acting humbly and totally obediently in the Holy Spirit who would enable him to complete such a difficult task, to stay focused and pure to the end.

The Father, Loving and Compassionate – the personal God who longs for a relationship with his people - Holy and Just, would execute the penalty for sin upon his Son. If death is the wages or reward of sin then Jesus here is paid in full. ‘Heaven’s peace and perfect Justice’ and demonstrated here. God’s loving-justice is perfectly calculated and direct and Jesus bares it all in our place.

Grace and Mercy towards His people. Grace; getting that which we don’t deserve, has to be mixed with Mercy; notgetting what we do deserve. We’ve sinned and fallen short, we deserve to die. The Merciful God sent his Son to die in our place.

In short, the Spiritual, physical and emotional agony of being separated from God, being beaten to within an inch of his life and nailed to a cross and left to hang and die, to be abandoned by his closest friends and family and humiliated in front of those who opposed him, I think it is fair to say, without getting too wishy-washy, that Jesus died of a Broken Heart. The awesome weight of sin crushing him, the abandonment of his Father isolating him – it would be enough to make anyone lose the will to live. And so, in total human agony the Son of God cries out... and dies.

That is the mystery of the Cross – we may never know the exact terms of the transaction, we may never endure anything close to the pain Jesus endured on that Friday, but the mystery surrounding the perfect sacrifice that God accepted on our behalf has opened a way so that “all who believe in Him shall not die, but have eternal life.”

Suffering and Salvation

It was now approaching noon. Jesus had been on the Cross for about three hours; Arm's outstretched - just hanging there.

Utterly exhausted, he sagged down with more of his weight on the nails in his wrists putting pressure on the median nerve. Excruciating, fiery pain shot along the fingers and up the arms to explode in the brain. As He pushed himself upward to avoid this stretching torment, He had to place His full weight on the nail through His feet. More searing agony as the nail tore through the nerves between the metatarsal bones of this feet.

At this point, as his tired arms grew weaker great waves of cramps ripped through the muscles, knotting them in deep relentless, throbbing pain. The cramps eliminated any strength he did have to pull himself up for breath. Hanging by the arms, the pectoral muscles, the large muscles of the chest, are paralyzed and the intercostal muscles, the small muscles between the ribs, are unable to act. Jesus could just about breathe in, but breathing out was tough. Jesus fought to raise Himself in order to get even one short breath. Finally, the carbon dioxide level increased in the lungs and in the blood stream, and the cramps partially subsided.

And yet, despite the total, unbearable, physical agony, he had the grace to forgive those who had scarred him; the ones who had caused this trauma; the ones who had set his execution in motion. Forgiveness.

He didn't retaliate against those who hurled abused.

He didn't condemn the criminal crucified next to him who heaped insult after insult on him.

But he did have time to reassure one man; a condemned law-breaker crucified near him. They may never have met before this day. They may never have talked together or ate together. But now they were dying together and in a moment of revelation the criminal sees Jesus for who he is.

In the midst of his own personal agonising trauma, the man turns his head towards Jesus, pulls against his own piercing nails to draw a short breath or two, and tries to get Jesus' attention.

"Jesus. Hey, Jesus." Jesus turns his face towards him.

"When you enter your kingdom... please, remember me. Please"

The first hint of the first smile of the day lights up the beaten and bloodied face of the Messiah and he replies back.

"Don't worry, I will. Today you will join me in paradise."

Salvation during Crucifixion: What a wonderful mysterious combination.

Christ Crucified

The death sentence given to Jesus of Nazareth was death by crucifixion: the most barbaric execution conceived of in the whole of human history.

Jesus would be flogged; scourged: whipped. The whips used would be leather strands with pieces of lead, flint, metal all lodged in the ends. It was designed and perfected to shred flesh from a man's back. The first few lashes bruised. The next batch cut through the skin. Thirty-nine lashes later Jesus back was a bloodied mangled mess of skin, muscle and tissue. Then the put a robe on him and mockingly crowned him king with a crown made of jagged-spiny thorns which pierce his head and jarred against his skull.

The practise was for the prisoner to carry his or her own cross. Whether the whole thing or just a cross beam was carried is unsure, but nevertheless, carrying a log for about 700 yards across a scourged back would hurt.

The reached the crucifixion site - outside the city walls, on the main road. It was a deterrent to stop anyone challenging the authorities.

Ripping off the robe, re-opening the wounds on his back he was laid on the cross.

These soldiers weren't careful and gentle. They had crucified hundreds of people, if not thousands. They were just doing their job and doing it with merciless efficiency.

They grabs his hands, pulled his arms outstretched and reached for a nail - a long, rough, rusty metal nail.

Feeling for the depression in the wrist, between the bones, the soldier positions the nail and hammers it through Jesus' arm - passing by arteries and veins and damaging nerves - and into the wood below. Every jolt of every blow sending agony through his body. The same action is carried out the other side.

Next the feet. They bend his knees slightly and ensure they rest in an uncomfortable place. One foot in brought back to rest on the other. Another nail, this positioned at the top of the front foot, is driven through flesh and bone and finally wood.

The cross is fixed and raised and Christ is left to die.

Exhausted - he hasn't slept since Wednesday night, though I doubt he got much rest knowing what was coming.

Hungry. Thirsty.

Bleeding profusely from his back, his hands, his feet, his head. His body losing a lot of fluid very quickly. The stress and pressure often caused migraines to afflict the victims.

It has just gone nine on Friday morning...

Extreme Thursday

Last night was a night of extremes.

Extreme humility. As Jesus, the Messiah, got up from the table during dinner with his followers, his friends, grabbed a towel and some water and began washing their feet.

This seems a strange act to do these days, but remember these guys walked everywhere, and they walked everywhere wearing sandals. The dust and dirt from the roads mix with the sweat of their toughened feet. This was a nasty job. And yet Jesus stoops down to serve his friends. He loves them. He cares for their needs, not just their spiritual needs, but their physical needs and their emotional needs.

It is a night of extreme significance. As Jesus, the Son of God, takes and old tradition and translates it into a loaded memorial. He takes bread and breaks it and shares it and tells them 'this is my body'. He takes a cup of wine and shares it saying 'this is my blood'. Eat and drink in remembrance of me. For centuries theologians have wrestled over the meaning of this mysterious act. A simple meal with enormous significance.

Extreme emotion. After dinner they walk to a nearby garden and Jesus goes alone to pray. He knows what is required of him over the next twenty-four hours. He knows he was born to die so that God and humankind can be reconciled to one another. He has read the prophecies. In his heart he is willing but... he's a man. Any man in that position would be tempted to run and hide; to escape in the night, flee the country and live a happy life as a carpenter elsewhere. But he stays. The stress and terror of knowing he'll die tomorrow sends his heart racing; his blood pressure soaring to point it bursts blood vessels in his head and, mixed with the cold sweat of excruciating anxiety, Jesus sweats blood.

The emotional trauma doesn't stop there because Judas, one of the twelve guys he had spent every day for the past three years with, comes to find him. He is leading the soldiers, who will arrest Jesus, right to him. And to signal which one the soldiers want, Judas kisses Jesus. A sign of love inflicting a wound so deep.

There are now Extreme Political Circumstances. The religious leaders take Jesus and put him on trial. Though none of the false witnesses they bring in can pin anything on the faultless Nazarene rabbi they eventually ask him plainly: Are you the Son of God?

I AM

He told the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

They didn't believe him. The politics of the time meant Jesus was dragged from trial to trial in front of differing parties and authorities. Eventually the Roman Governor gave the death sentence. He was schedule for Crucifixion at 9:00am.