A Good Friday like no other – the world fights a pandemic. Here in the UK, as in many nations, we are in ‘lockdown’ – adjusting to social distancing and self-isolation (terms with which we were perhaps unfamiliar just a few weeks ago).

For Christians this has meant, among many other things, the closing down of churches and normal church services, and has presented huge challenges, now being faced with creativity and resourcefulness.

Good Friday stands as one of the great pinnacles of our Christian faith. It marks the point in history when Jesus of Nazareth suffered the ignominious and brutal death by crucifixion at the hands of Roman soldiers … The details are faithfully recorded by all four Gospel writers, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John – occupying large sections of their work, and betokening the profound nature of this event.

For none of them did the Crucifixion come as a surprise, nor was it viewed as an accident. Indeed, Jesus alluded to His sufferings on numerous occasions during His ministry – saying, for example, “See, we are going up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man will be delivered over to the chief priests and the scribes, and they will condemn Him to death and deliver Him over to the Gentiles (Romans). And they will mock Him and spit on Him, and flog Him and kill Him. And after three days He will rise.”

I’ve been pondering some words, recorded by John in his account, in which Jesus says: “I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down His life for the sheep … For this reason the Father loves me, because I lay down my life that I may take it up again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again. This charge I have received from my Father.” John 10:11,17-18

Whatever interpretations and explanations there may be of Jesus’ sufferings and death, this for me, is the ultimate – Jesus life was GIVEN and not TAKEN. Yes, there is the human element of betrayal, arrest, trial, torture and execution – BUT one has the sense that throughout it all JESUS is in total control. Here is someone fulfilling a destiny, and until this point in time He was ‘indestructible’ – indeed several attempts to take His life are mentioned by the gospel writers (Luke tells of an attempt in Nazareth, early in Jesus public ministry, and John relates an occasion when opponents took up stones to stone Him.) The reason they did not succeed, announces John, is because “His hour had not yet come”

When that ‘hour’ did arrive eventually, Jesus unflinchingly set His face to go to Jerusalem, where He knew what ‘fate’ awaited Him. In a remarkably transcendent episode (The Transfiguration) He meets with figures from the past (Moses and Elijah) and discusses His approaching ‘exodus’ which He was to ‘accomplish’ at Jerusalem.

So, Good Friday marks the appointed ‘hour’, quite deliberately coinciding with the Jewish Passover Feast, when Jesus voluntarily lays down His life, as the antitype of the passover Lamb. Knowingly He submits Himself to a ‘baptism’ or immersion in suffering, to drinking the cup offered by His Heavenly Father, and, as Paul later wrote: “becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross”.

The British worship leader/songwriter, Graham Kendrick, so beautifully expresses this self-giving of Jesus in his much-loved song entitled “The Servant King”

Come see His hands and His feet
The scars that speak of sacrifice
Hands that flung stars into space
To cruel nails surrendered

Given Not Taken – was the life of Jesus … and NOW, having taken up His life again, in resurrection, He offers that life to all. Perhaps as you read this you may hear His Voice calling to you: “It was for YOU that I was pierced, that I died – in order that you might receive My life – abundant life, eternal life” – yes, it is His gift, offered to you. I pray you will freely take His Gift today.

God bless you, this Eastertide.