If you're looking for a way to go through Good Friday, allow Mark 15 to guide you

To date, I’ve experienced 42 Good Fridays.

Of those, 16 passed without much thought. But ever since that 17th one, I’ve gone through the day with a greater sense of gravity. More often than not, I’ve struggled over how to go about the day. Questions of where, how, what, when, and who have all accompanied me as I’ve considered how best to spend Good Friday though the years.

Behind and underneath this day each year has been a stirring - and I’ve only recently put my finger on what that is.

Jesus’ death evokes something from within us

Go to any account of the death of Jesus, and there you find much being evoked from those who encountered it.

Consider the accounts of the people we find in Mark 15 as a guide today.

Simon of Cyrene (15:21)

How does one verse say so much?

Simon just happened to be on his way through Jerusalem from the country. And he just happened to be passing through when this procession with Jesus carrying the cross came by. And when Jesus couldn’t carry it any longer, the soldiers just happened to single Simon out to help carry the cross.

None of this encounter with Jesus “just happened” in Simon’s life - or in ours either. Pause to consider God’s way of intersecting your life, as only He could’ve.

Two rebels crucified beside Jesus (15:27)

God has an amazing way of making up for lost time.

Two rebels were crucified next to Jesus. We have the details of the conversation in other accounts. While one hurled insults at Jesus, the other recognized he’d brought himself to this point. And there, nailed to his own cross, he recognized he was in the presence of God. It’s a deathbed confession of his need for a Savior, and our Savior - even in his suffering - provided divine grace.

Pause for a moment to consider how grace has balanced the scales in your life - and then abundantly shifted them in your favor.

The Roman centurion (15:39)

There’s no battle-hardening that God cannot get through.

This seemingly objective bystander had no doubt heard of Jesus. Even if he hadn’t, he’d been assigned to stand guard over the proceedings at Golgotha, and see Roman justice to its conclusion. I don’t know how many times he’d encountered Jesus, or if he knew of Jesus healing a fellow centurion’s servant.

But as he watched Jesus on the cross, and heard him take his final breath, his armor was pierced: “Surely this man was the Son of God!”

Notice how Jesus carried the weight he carried, and died the death he died. Revisit that moment you declared at the heart level who Jesus is.

Joseph of Arimathea (15:42-46)

As a friend who’d once been a bouncer has reminded me, it’s the silent ones to make note of.

Silent until now in Jesus’ story, Joseph of Arimathea goes to Pilate and asks for the body, wraps it in linen cloth (another account has him and Nicodemus preparing it with spices), and places it in a tomb cut out of rock. Where has this show of devotion come from? Mark gives a clue, as we see him describe Joseph as one “who was himself waiting for the kingdom of God.” A member of a human council, yet waiting for God’s kingdom.

Is there an expression or act of devotion to Jesus you are being led to today?

The women who had followed him (15:40-41, 15:47)

Something is incomplete.

When we read in Mark 15 of the women who had so faithfully accompanied Jesus and cared for him during his ministry, they’re described as watching from a distance. Then after Joseph sealed the tomb, they “saw where he was laid.” This seeing from afar isn’t like them. By nature, women are nurturing. The care they’d shown previously is absent here, as they seem to not be able to get any closer.

It reminds us that it’s Friday, and things are incomplete.

Yes, indeed. There is more to come.

For today though, let his death evoke something from the depths.

Nathan