Preparing for Good Friday

Something I’ve been so keenly aware of is how sadness, pain, and death generally make people uncomfortable.  Growing up, I always avoided questions about my dad because I hated the idea of making someone uncomfortable with the reply “my dad died”.  I knew my response in telling someone that he passed away made them uncomfortable. If people don’t have to hear sad or uncomfortable news, they will choose not to.  It’s almost easier avoid hard topics and to not have to sit with the discomfort of now knowing the hard things.  Can I be brutally honest?  This will be a hindrance to your faith journey.  If you are afraid of being uncomfortable, then your walk with Jesus will not reach its full potential.  In walking with Jesus, this calls us to sit in discomfort at times and you have to be willing to do this. With Good Friday approaching, I want to encourage each of you to sit in the discomfort, to not avoid it, but to sit in it and let Jesus’ sacrifice change you. 

Leading up to Jesus’ death, Jesus withdrew to a quiet place by himself to talk with the Father.  “He withdrew about a stone’s throw beyond them, knelt down and prayed”.  Luke 22:41 God humbled himself and became man, to be like us, live like us, and save us.  In doing so, he also talked to the Father in the way that we should also talk to the Father.  In our distress, we go to God.  In our distress, we surrender and submit ourselves before God to be renewed and gain strength from the Father.  Oftentimes, we go to our phones, a show, sleep, etc., but to get the real soul rest and comfort we need, we need to go to our maker.  We need to go to the one who sustains us in full submission and pray to him the way Jesus did.  

“Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me, yet not my will, but yours be done”. Luke 22:42 As God already told us, we are to make our requests known to Him, but ultimately trust in HIS WILL over our own.  Our own wills lead to temporary satisfaction, where God knows that His will leads to lasting, fruitful satisfaction.  Jesus, in his human form, exemplifies to us that we are to go to the Father and make our requests known to him.  While we make our requests known to him, we are to remain humbled and surrendered to HIS will over our own.  In surrender, we are yielding our control for God’s control.  Jesus had the power to change the entire narrative, yet not His will, but the Father’s be done. We must be willing to will ourselves to God’s will, as His ways are higher than our own.

“An angel from heaven appeared to him and strengthened him.” Luke 22:43 Jesus exemplifies to us that we are to not only will ourselves to God’s plan, but come with a surrendered posture. In doing so, God will strengthen you, the way he did for Jesus. In our weakness, God gives us strength.  In our human fragility, God enables us to keep going by strengthening us little by little.  In Jesus’ human body, the Father knew that he needed strength.  God gives us what we need, when we need it.  When we come to God in full surrender and weakness, we enable him to fill us up and strengthen us with his power and nothing of ourselves.  “For when I am weak, then I am strong.” 2 Corinthians 12:10

“And being in anguish, he prayed more earnestly and his sweat was like drops of blood falling to the ground”.  Luke 22:44 The Father gave Jesus strength, and while he was given strength, he was still in great anguish.  In Matthew’s account of this story, Jesus says “my soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death” Matthew 26:38 Jesus was overwhelmed with grief because he KNEW everything that was going to happen to him, yet not his will, but the Father’s be done.  While Jesus was strengthened in his human form, he was still in great anguish. So many of us assume that strength equates to no pain or sorrow.  We can simultaneously be in sorrow and be in strength. We can be in great anguish, pain, and discomfort, while also feeling great strength and peace from God.  In Jesus’ great anguish, he prayed more earnestly, more sincerely, more deeply, with all of him.  This is genuine prayer.  

But the part that really gets me in this story is that Jesus was dripping drops of blood.  This is where you may start to feel uncomfortable.  But remember, we must allow ourselves to sit in the discomfort to really understand the sacrifice Jesus made.  Jesus was in such distress, that his body physically was displaying the effects of his anguish.  This is an actual condition called Hematidrosis.  Gotquestions.org describes Hematidrosis as “a rare, but very real medical condition that causes one’s sweat to contain blood.  The sweat glands are surrounded by tiny blood vessels that can constrict and then dilate to the point of rupture, causing blood to effuse into the sweat glands.  The cause of Hematidrosis is extreme anguish.” This should reveal so much to you.  This detail of Jesus sweating blood signifies to us that Jesus was both fully God and fully human.  Jesus is God, but at the same time, Jesus took on human form, to become like us and take our sin.  The sweating of blood shows us his human fragility, yet at the same time his omniscience in knowing how incredibly painful enduring the cross was going to be.  Jesus knew it all- every single detail, to the point of physically feeling the effects of what he would soon endure. His body was physically reacting to what he already knew was going to happen to him. Yet, in his human fragility, while still being God, he willed himself to the Father’s will.  

“In your relationships with one another, have the same attitude of mind Christ Jesus had: who being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness.  And being found in appearance as a human being, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death- even death on a cross!” Philippians 2:5-8 Luke describing to us that Jesus was sweating blood reveals to us Jesus’ very nature of being both God and in human form.  He prayed in great anguish because he knew everything that was soon to happen, yet he felt and experienced the type of agony that any human being would feel in that deep sorrow. 

Have you allowed yourself to sit in the discomfort of what Jesus did for you or do you avoid it at all costs?  To truly grow in reverence of God, we must allow ourselves to sit in the sorrow.  To grow in genuine relationship with Jesus, you must allow yourself to dwell in the discomfort of what he did for you on the cross. The discomfort will turn to acknowledgement of how great God’s love for us really is.  He loves us so much to endure the most agonizing and torturous death- just to make a way so we can be in eternity with him forever.  Jesus made a way when there was no other way, yet so many of us avoid the suffering he had to experience because it makes us “uncomfortable”.  Friends, I don’t mean to be blunt, but what if sitting in the discomfort is exactly what we need to do to really understand the magnitude of what Jesus did for us?  Good Friday allows us to sit with Jesus and recognize how much he really loves us and how great our need for him really is.  Thank you, Jesus, for the blood you shed. You didn’t deserve it, yet you still made a way. Hallelujah for the cross.