Holy Week Good Friday Meditation "Pilate Knew the Truth"

 Pilate knew the truth.  But did he know the whole truth?

 Pilate knew that Jesus was a king, identifying him on the cross as “The King of the Jews”, much to the dismay of the religious leaders. When they asked him to change the inscription to read, ‘This man said, I am the King of the Jews’, Pilate famously replied, “What I have written I have written.” (Read John 18:1-19:42)

 Did Pilate know that this King was the final offering for the sin? Did he know that the blood of the King would create the opening in the curtain (‘that is, through Jesus’ flesh’) which would allow us to approach with confidence the house of God? (Read Hebrews 10:16-25)

 Did Pilate know that the torture he ordered, the beatings which resulted from his sentence of this King, would fulfill the prophetic words that his appearance would be ‘marred…beyond human semblance, and his form beyond that of mortals’?  That this King’s crucifixion would fulfill the promise that the servant ‘shall be exalted and lifted up and shall be very high’? That this King’s Friday death would forever be marked because in it ‘he bore the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors?’ (Read Isaiah 52:13-53:12)

 Did Pilate know that by sending this King to his death he was writing the final scene in salvation’s story? Did he know that this King is the one of whom ‘future generations will be told…and proclaim his deliverance to a people yet unborn, saying that he has done it?’ (Read Psalm 22)

 Did Pilate know the truth that this King’s death was not a bad ending but a Good finish, because he was not only King of the Jews but also King of the Universe?

 Did he know that this is what the cross’s inscription meant to the angels waiting and weeping, to the generations of a people yet unborn?

 Do you?

Good Friday, Holy Week "The Revealing of God's Arm"

Reading Isaiah 53:1b "...and to whom has the arm of the LORD been revealed?"

I wonder if that is something to be desired or feared?

On this holy night our Lord, Jesus Christ, was dead. Really. Dead. "He was assigned a grave with the wicked, and with the rich in his death."

But here's the thing, Isaiah explains: "...he had done no violence, nor was any deceit in his mouth."

Why, God, did you forsake your Son? "Yet it was the LORD's (Yahweh's) will to crush him and cause him to suffer... ."

Is this what is means to have be on the revealing end of the LORD's mighty arm?

Or is it this?  "After he has suffered, he will see the light of life and be satisfied... ."

I choose to believe, or I believe by the power of the Spirit, that earth and heaven will be one and that this is when Jesus will be satisfied, all because of a Friday afternoon in which he died an unspeakable death and dwelt in his grave for what must have been in heaven an unbearable three days. Unless you knew how it was going to end.

And this is how the arm of the LORD has been revealed to us.