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What Happened on Good Friday?

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Today is Good Friday, the bleakest moment in the Gospel story. Reading the story of Jesus’ arrest, trial, and crucifixion today, we have the benefit of knowing that it’s all leading up to the triumph of Easter. But to the Jesus-followers present at the scene, it must have seemed that the world as they knew it was falling apart.

To refresh your memory, see what happened on Monday and Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday of Easter week.

[Read the Bible Gateway Blog post, Infographic: What Happened During Holy Week Day-By-Day.

Today is the day that the events of Holy Week really begin to move. Our timeline shows the many different strands of the Easter story coming together on this day (click to see the full timeline):

goodfriday

If you haven’t read the complete story of the crucifixion recently, today’s a perfect day to revisit it. Here are the four Gospel accounts of the story:

One of the challenges of reading the crucifixion story two thousands years after the event took place is that it’s difficult for us to empathize with its participants. From our perspective, the Easter crowds seem insanely fickle; Jesus’ disciples seem utterly clueless; the members of the Sandhedrin contemptibly evil; Pilate laughably corrupt.

Those things are true. Nobody except Jesus behaves well in the Good Friday story. But it’s these very people—fickle, clueless, evil, corrupt—that Jesus died for.

The truth is that we have much in common with the fools and villains of Easter. The wonder is that Jesus loved them, and us, enough to submit to foolishness, injustice, and death. The miracle is that three days later, he rose from the dead to offer us salvation. Hallelujah, what a Savior!

Filed under Easter, Holy Week, Lent