Jesus promises the Spirit in John 14 and 16. How did we get stuck on Friday? How do we move beyond it?

The movie was supposed to be true to how things likely happened when Jesus was crucified. It was gory and grotesque and certainly showed man’s inhumanity to the Son of God and Son of Man. And to think this was done frequently throughout the ages. Worse yet, it is still done today.

ISIS militants have been known to crucify those who attempt to resist them.

However, there is also another place where crucifixion is known to occur. Yep, you guessed it, Saudi Arabia. Under the Saudi penal code, crucifixion is a legal form of punishment and execution. In one case that has drawn international attention, the Saudi government sentenced a 17-year-old boy named Ali al-Nimr to crucifixion for his participation in anti-government protests. In Saudi Arabia, crucifixion takes place after death with the dead body being crucified in a public place to serve as a warning to others. Amnesty International has condemned the act as “the ultimate form of cruel, inhuman and degrading punishment.”

10 Barbaric Forms Of Punishment Still Practiced Today – Listverse

So why would God the Father allow this to happen to His Son? Hebrews says of Jesus

… fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith. For the joy set before him he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.

Hebrews 12:2 NIV

What joy? The prophecy in Isaiah 53: 10-12 might help our understanding.

¹⁰ Yet it was the will of the Lord to crush him with affliction.
When you make his life an offering for sin,
    he shall see his offspring and shall prolong his days;
through him the will of the Lord shall prosper.
¹¹     Out of his anguish he shall see;
he shall find satisfaction through his knowledge.
    The righteous one, my servant, shall make many righteous,
    and he shall bear their iniquities.
¹² Therefore I will allot him a portion with the great,
    and he shall divide the spoil with the strong,
because he poured out himself to death
    and was numbered with the transgressors,
yet he bore the sin of many
    and made intercession for the transgressors.

Isaiah 53:10-12 NRSVUE

Jesus loves you that much. All He is asking is that you surrender to Him. Let Him live through you by the power of His Holy Spirit. This has nothing to do with chocolate or bunnies, eggs or candy.

Read that quote from Isaiah again. I think if you read it slowly and ponder the meaning you will have a glorious Easter Season!

If you remain at the cross and the blood, ask yourself if that is what Jesus would want? Yes, He is holy and righteous and to be adored. What about the promises He gave us? Did He die so that we could sit at His grave forever? Are you willing to move beyond the blood, brutality and death?

I think the Father had more in mind than that, much more. His ways are truly higher than our ways and His thoughts than our thoughts. Father help us to move into the truth You desire for us.