Filling Your Emptiness -- Your New Life
Chapter 5
The Story
This tale said God had created everything and everyone, and “it was good.” God loved everyone so much, he gave them the ultimate free will. This was his real gift to see if they would, in turn, love him. His gift to us was life. Our gift to him would be what we would do with that life.
As mankind evolved and demonstrated their selfishness, a sinful self-nature in contrast to God’s love, God provided laws and sacred scriptures inspired to his chosen prophets as guidance to assist them. The laws may have helped some, but it was also complicated as mankind continued to repeat their own selfish cycle.
Eventually, God realized mankind’s opportunity to demonstrate their love for him should be simplified. God loves us so much, he would send his own Son in person to explain to mankind his available love, gift of redemption, and abundant eternal life.
By repenting, turning from our selfishness and accepting Jesus as God’s son, he will, as our Savior, redeem us from our sins and allow us to become an eternal blessed member of his eternity to share an abundant life of joy, breaking out of our cycle of sin, disappointment, and sadness, securing our only true hope!
Politics
Unfortunately, at this time, God’s chosen people were oppressed by the foreign conquering Roman government. The local governing Roman officials were generally unhappy being away from their own desirable homeland in such a harsh climate, forced to govern an unruly population of different culture. The Romans wanted and demanded the least resistance possible and provided as much punishment and discipline needed.
The local population, too, were unhappy with the foreign dominance, taxation, and lack of respect, but were not powerful enough to revolt. They were inspired by the prophets’ message of a coming Messiah, who, as their King, would one day free them from their unjust rule and domination.
Jesus began his ministry sharing God’s love and deliverance from domination to God’s new earthly kingdom. As Scripture recorded, throughout the land, Jesus shared God’s love and performed many miracles, demonstrating God’s power and love.
Unfortunately, the local religious leaders became jealous and envious of Jesus’s growing following and popularity and did not accept him as God’s actual son, but merely as just another “voice from the wilderness.” They selfishly feared their own loss of popularity and power.
Likewise, the current local Roman rulers feared a possible revolt by a rumored “new King of the Jews.” Such tension would reflect poorly on their leadership to the home Roman government.
The jealous religious leaders would quietly and secretively plot with the Roman authorities to solve both concerns by having the Romans crucify Jesus and end his threats and protect their own positions.
Trial and crucifixion
In the darkest of night, the Roman soldiers were led to the Mount of Olives and the Garden of Gethsemane, where Jesus was praying with his disciples. Jesus knew his destiny and sacrifice and was praying so intensely to God his Father, “drops of sweat fell from his brow like blood.”
The soldiers arrested Jesus, tied him, and took him away to the higher Roman authorities. The Jewish leaders insisted the Romans execute Jesus for breaking their laws and so his followers would blame the Romans and not them.
The Roman authorities sent Jesus back and forth among themselves as they could find no fault, nor did they want to be associated with this injustice or of provoking trouble.
Pilate, the Roman ruler, saw that there was nothing he could do to make the people change their minds. In fact, it looked as if there would be a riot. So he took some water and washed his hands in front of them all. He said, “I am not guilty of this man’s death. You are the ones who are doing it!”
Since the locals had no authority to execute people, it would require Romans to fulfill such sentencing. Because Jesus was proclaimed to be the new King of the Jews, he could be deemed a threat to Roman rule and thereby executed. The Romans reluctantly agreed to perform the execution.
The soldiers took Jesus away tied. They covered his eyes so that he could not see them. Then they hit him and mocked, “Be a prophet and tell us who hit you!” And they shouted all kinds of insults and laughed at him.
They gave him thirty-nine lashes, as forty lashes was supposed to assure death from a cat-o’-nine-tails. A cat-o’-nine-tails is a whip. It consists of nine pieces of cord or leather strands, each tied with a series of knots with pieces of metal and rock. The device traditionally punished prisoners by whipping their bare backs and ripping off their skin.
The soldiers made a crown from thorny branches and gouged it onto Jesus’s head until blood dripped. Then they put a purple robe around him. They kept coming up to him and saying, “Hail to the king of the Jews!” And they hit him in the face. They spit on him. Then they took a stick and kept hitting him.
Jesus was forced to carry his own cross down the Via Dolorosa, Path of Sorrow, to Golgotha, the Place of the Skull, a barren hill of execution. There they laid Jesus onto a cross and drove spikes through his hands and feet into the rugged cross.
Once nailed, the cross was uplifted and forcefully dropped into a hole to stand erect for display with another convicted criminal crucified on each side. The weight of the hanging body would eventually cause a prisoner to suffocate. Often, their legs would be broken to prevent any sustained support, prolonging suffering.
The soldiers laughed at Jesus and made fun of him. There was a jar full of sour wine there, so the soldiers soaked a sponge in it. They put the sponge on a branch of a hyssop plant and lifted it to Jesus’ mouth. When he tasted the wine, he said, “It is finished.” Then he bowed his head and died.
The soldiers then took his clothes and, by rolling dice, divided these among themselves. Then they bowed down on their knees and pretended to honor him as a king.
The next day was a special Sabbath day. The Jewish leaders did not want the body to stay on the cross on the Sabbath day. So they asked Pilate to order that the legs of the criminals be broken to hasten their death, and they asked that the bodies be taken down from the crosses. But when the soldiers came close to Jesus, they saw that he was already dead. So they did not break his legs. But one of the soldiers stuck his spear into Jesus’s side. Immediately blood and water poured out.
Jesus, as his Father commanded, sacrificed himself to provide the sinners of the world a free gift offer of redemption, salvation. “For God so loved the world, He gave His only Son, that whoever believes and accepts Him as God’s Son and their Savior will not perish (be separated from God), but will have eternal life in Heaven” with them. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. He offered this as a free gift, unable to be earned.
The church speaker startled me as he added, “For God so loved you.”
Had Jesus been a mere man, his death on the cross would be the end of this story. Jesus would be just another tale of a kind person trying to do good, but he was not!
Jesus’s body was laid wrapped in a borrowed tomb to await the traditional burial preparation. Three days later, women went to the tomb for the preparation, only to find the body missing and the tomb empty.
Jesus had risen and would appear to the women, his disciples, and thousands of others before rising to heaven to be with God our Father. He will await there until the appointed time of God when he will return here to establish his new earthly kingdom. In the meantime, as his followers, we are to spread his story, news, and invitation for everyone.