Good Friday

97/365:

At the age of 33, Jesus was condemned to the death penalty.

At the time, crucifixion was the "worst" death.  Only the worst criminals condemned to be crucified. Yet it was even more dreadful for Jesus,

for unlike other criminals condemned to death by crucifixion Jesus was nailed to the cross by His hands and feet, rather than tied...

Each nail was 6 to 8 inches long.

The nails were driven into His wrist. Not into His palms as is commonly portrayed. There's a tendon in the wrist that extends to the shoulder.

The Roman guards knew that when the nails were being hammered into the Wrist, that tendon would tear and break, forcing Jesus to use

His back muscles to support himself, so that He could breathe.

Both of His feet were nailed together. Thus He was forced to support Himself on the single nail that impaled His feet to the cross.

Jesus could not support himself with His legs for long because of the pain, so He was forced to alternate between arching

His back and using his legs just to continue to breath. Imagine the struggle, the pain, the suffering, the courage.

Jesus endured this reality for over 3 hours.

Yes, over 3 hours! Can you imagine this kind of suffering? A few minutes before He died, Jesus stopped bleeding. He was simply pouring water from his wounds.

From common images we see wounds to His hands and feet and even the spear wound to His side... But do we remember the many wounds made to his body.

A hammer driving large nails through the wrists, the feet overlapped and a nail hammered through the arches, then a Roman guard piercing His side with a spear.

And... before the nails and the spear, Jesus was whipped and beaten. The whipping was so severe that it tore the flesh from His body.

The beating so horrific that His face was torn and his beard ripped from His face.

The crown of thorns (two to three inch thorns) cut deeply into His scalp. Most men would not have survived this torture.

He had no more blood to bleed out, only water poured from His wounds. The human adult body contains about 5 liters (just over a gallon) of blood.

Jesus poured all 5 liters of his blood; He had three nails hammered into His body; a crown of thorns on His head and, beyond that, a Roman soldier who stabbed a spear into His chest.

All these without mentioning the humiliation He passed after carrying His own cross for almost 2 kilometers, while the crowd

spat in his face and threw stones (the cross beam was almost 30 kg of weight)

Jesus had to endure this experience, so that you may have free access to God.

So that your sins can be "washed" away. All of them, with no exception!

Jesus Christ died

for you.