Fr. William Horo
Today is Good Friday. It is a public holiday in the Christian world. Christians all over the world commemorate with religious fervour the crucifixion and death of Jesus on Mount Calvary. Good Friday is the zenith of the 40-day fast of Christians in Lent. On Saturday, after Good Friday, the followers of Jesus end their fast, and on Sunday morning they rejoice at the resurrection of Jesus from the tomb. (Mt. 28:6) Besides fasting in imitation of Jesus, who fasted for 40 days and 40 nights (Mt. 4: 2), his followers remember all events leading to his death, such as His last supper, arrest at Gethsemane, scourging, His judgement, journeying to Mount Calvary carrying his cross, his crucifixion, and death.
On Good Friday, Jesus was executed by Pontius Pilate, the fifth governor of the Roman province of Judea, under Emperor Tiberius. As a Roman prefect, Pontius Pilate was granted the power of a supreme judge. He had the sole authority to order a criminal’s execution. He convicted Jesus of treason, though he was found not guilty. Examining him on the charge of treason, Pilate asked Jesus in his court, “Are you the king of the Jews?” To that, Jesus replied, “You say so.” (Lk. 23:3) Then Pilate said to the chief priests and the crowds, “I find no basis for an accusation against this man.” (Lk. 23:4) And when the riot was beginning, the governor took some water and washed his hands before the crowd, saying, “I am innocent of this man’s blood; see to it yourselves.” (Mt. 27:24)
In fact, the Governor wanted to release Jesus and asked the people, “Whom do you want me to release for you, Jesus Barabbas or Jesus who is called the Messiah?” (Mt. 27:17) At his birth itself, the angel declared him the Messiah. On his very birthday, the angel said to the shepherd, “Today in the city of David a Saviour has been born; the Lord Messiah has been born for you.” Jesus Barabbas was a notorious prisoner. The crowd, persuaded by the chief priests and the elders, preferred Barabbas to the Messiah and shouted, “Let Jesus be crucified.” (Mt. 27:22) The Governor asked them again, “Why, what evil has he done?” But they shouted all the more, “Let him be crucified.” (Mt. 27:23) When Pilate saw that he could do nothing, he released Barabbas for them, and after flogging Jesus, he handed him over to be crucified.
The soldiers of the governor took Jesus the Messiah into the governor’s headquarters and gathered the whole cohort around him. They stripped off his garments and scourged him the whole night. Later in the night, they put a scarlet robe on him, placed a crown of thorns on his head, and mocked him, saying, “Hail, King of the Jews.” (Mt. 27:29) The soldiers spat on him and humiliated him; they stripped him of the scarlet robe they had put on him and put his own clothes on him, then led him away to crucify him. They made him carry his own cross, the means of his execution in the Roman Empire. And when they had come to a place called Golgotha (which means place of the skull), they crucified him. Over his head, they put the charge against him, which read, “This is Jesus, the King of the Jews.” (Mt. 27:37)
However, the real cause of Jesus’ execution was not political at all but a religious one. He was dragged into it by the religious leaders of his own society. Jesus was a Jew by birth. The Jewish religious leaders could not digest his teachings, for he was teaching with authority. (Mk. 1: 22) They had become zeros in front of him. Even the temple police who were sent by the chief priests and Pharisees to arrest him came back empty-handed and confessed, “Never has anyone spoken like him.” (Jn. 7:46) So the Sanhedrin, an elite council of priestly and lay elders of Judaism, got him arrested and handed him over to the Romans. They accused him of various offences that were mostly religious in nature, such as violating the Sabbath (Lk. 13:14), threatening to destroy the Jewish temple (Mt. 26:61; Jn. 2:19), practising sorcery, exorcising people by the power of demons (Lk. 11:15), and claiming to be the Messiah. (Lk.11:20) Finally, they dragged him to Pilate, the Governor of Roman Judea, to be tried for claiming to be the king of the Jews.
The main religious cause of Jesus’ crucifixion was that of blasphemy—that he claimed to be the Son of God. In Pilate’s court, Caiaphas the high priest said to Jesus, “Tell us if you are the Messiah, the Son of God.” Jesus said to him, “You have said so...” Then the high priest tore off his clothes and said, “He has blasphemed! Why do we still need witnesses? You have now heard his blasphemy. (Mt. 2: 63–65) And on the Jews demand, the Pilate announced the verdict that he should be crucified to his death. So Jesus was crucified. Now, the question arises, “Was it true that Jesus blasphemed or was he the Messiah, the Son of God?” The Bible asserts that Jesus is the Messiah; he did not blaspheme. He is the Son of God who was crucified on Good Friday. The Old Testament books (OT) prophesy about Jesus, the promised Messiah, whereas the New Testament books (NT) confirm him as the Messiah to the world.
In the very first book of Genesis, we read God saying to the serpent (Satan) after the fall of Adam and Eve, “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers.” Jesus is her offspring, for he was born of a woman. (Gal. 4:4) Angel Gabriel said to Mary, mother of Jesus, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favour with God. And now, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you will name him Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High God.” (Lk. 1: 30-35) Again in the book of Exodus there is a narration of a burning bush; that the bush was blazing, yet it was not consumed. As Moses drew closer to the bush, a voice of God was heard: “Moses, Moses! Come no closer! Remove the sandals from your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground.” (Ex. 3: 5) At Jesus’ baptism and transfiguration, the same voice of God was heard saying, “This is my Son, the Beloved.” (Mt. 3: 17; 17: 5). The Scripture scholars opine that Moses prefigured Jesus because he freed the Israelites from the slavery of Pharaoh just as Jesus freed humankind from the slavery of sin and death. But the author of Hebrews writes, “Moses was faithful in all of God’s house as a servant, whereas Jesus was faithful over God’s house as a son.” (Hb. 3: 5–6) So he did not blaspheme, for he was the Son of God, the Messiah he claimed to be.
The prophetic books of the Bible also speak of Jesus as the Son of God. Prophet Isaiah had prophesied, “The young woman is with child and shall bear a son, and she shall name him Immanuel.” (Is. 7:14), and Jesus is the Immanuel. Matthew persuades Joseph, who found Mary his wife with a child in her womb before their marriage by the power of the Holy Spirit, to take her home as his wife, saying, “She will bear a son, and you will name him Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.” In Jesus, the prophecy of the prophet Isaiah is fulfilled, for Jesus is the Immanuel, God with us. (Mt.1: 23) His mother, Mary, is the young wife of the prophet Isaiah. Prophet Daniel too had prophesied about Jesus, the Messiah. In his vision, the prophet Daniel “saw one like a human being coming with the clouds of heaven, and to him was given dominion, glory, and kingship, so that all peoples, nations, and languages should serve him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion that shall not pass away, and his kingdom is one that shall never be destroyed.” (Dn. 7: 13–14) The one human being in Daniel’s vision is Jesus, the Son of God. Gabriel tells the Virgin Mary, “You will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you will name him Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High.” (Lk. 1: 31–32)
The Christians commemorate the death of Jesus as Good Friday, not because he was killed for treason. They celebrate Good Friday because Jesus became the Lamb of God and took away the sins of humanity with his sacrifice on the cross (Jn. (Heb. 9:28) As the Psalmist says, “No man can buy his own ransom or pay a price to God for his life.” (Ps. 49:7) The ransom of the man’s soul is beyond him. “But God will ransom me from death and take my soul to himself,” the Psalmist continues. (Ps. 49:15) And for that purpose, God incarnated and became the son of man (Jn. 3:13), born of a woman. (Gal. 4:4) He was named Jesus, the Messiah. (Lk. 2:21) During his interrogation in Pilate’s court, Jesus had confirmed, “My kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were from this world, my followers would be fighting to keep me from being handed over to the Jews.” (Jn. 18:36)
St. Paul, a learned Pharisee and an early convert to Christianity, says, “Sin came into the world through one man, and death came through sin and spread to all because all have sinned.” (Rom. 5:12) Adam, the first man in the Bible, brought sin into the world by disobeying God. God, after creating him, told him not to eat the fruit of the tree that is in the middle of the garden of Eden or else he would die. But being cheated by the serpent (the devil), his wife gave him the fruit of the forbidden tree, which he ate. (Gn. 3: 3-6) Thus, sin and death reigned in the world. In order to free the world from sin and death, God sent his Son into the world. As St. John the evangelist writes, “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.”
(Jn. 3: 16) Jesus was the Son of God, and as such, he had no sin. St. Paul says that he knew no sin, but for our sake God made him to be sinful so that in him we might become the righteousness of God (2 Corinthians 5:21).
To share his righteousness with us, Jesus did penance for us, mankind. In the words of St. Paul, “It was by one man’s (Adam’s) offence that death came to reign over all, but how much greater the reign of life of those who receive the fullness of grace and the gift of saving justice through one man, Jesus Christ!” (Rom. 5:17) In fact, the death of Jesus on the cross was an act of repentance for the sins of all mankind. In obedience to God, the Father, he died on the cross. In his public ministry, he had once declared, “No one has greater love than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.” (Jn. 15:13) And that is what he did on the cross. “Just as by one man’s disobedience many were sinners, so by one man’s obedience are many to be made upright. (Rom. 5:19) Jesus fulfilled the prophecy of the prophet Isaiah. “He was wounded for our transgressions, crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the punishment that made us whole, and by his bruises we are healed.” (Is. 53:5) This is the only reason; the Christian world commemorates the death of Jesus on the cross on Good Friday year by year.
Thus, the inference is that Jesus did not blaspheme. He was the Son of God, as he claimed to be. Once in his public life, Peter, his disciple and spokesperson, answered his question, “Who do you say I am?” “You are Christ, the Messiah, the Son of the living God,” Jesus was pleased that they knew his true identity and said, “It is not flesh and blood that revealed this to you but my Father in heaven.” So Jesus could not be killed for blasphemy, as accused. He was the Son of God but made son of man. According to the Bible, he is Gods Son. For the Bible calls him, “He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation; for in him all things in heaven and on earth were created, things visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or powers—all things have been created through him and for him. (Col. 1: 15-16)