Good Friday

Good Friday is observed on the Friday before Easter Sunday of the holy week. [The timeline/days in the holy week are Palm Sunday - Monday - Tuesday - Wednesday - Maundy Thursday - Good Friday - Saturday & Easter Sunday]. 

On the Good Friday people all over the world commemorate the suffering of Lord Jesus Christ on the cross. It is a day of sadness to all. People reflect on the death and suffering of Jesus on this day. The suffering of Jesus was the consequence of his love and compassion. For Jesus, love is not romance or flirting with opposite sex, but a commitment to serve and sacrifice. He challenged all man-made divisions of superior-inferior, uppercast-lowercast, pure-impure, saint-sinner and cared for the deprived, poor, sick and suffering. He proclaimed equality of all human beings. He discouraged legalistic, superstitious and ritualistic religion, always stressing love and compassion as the root and rationale of true religion. Jesus’ unconditional love for others is boundless. He never hesitated to lay down his life for his friends. He said, knowing that his actions and options were creating waves of opposition from the religious and political authorities who sought to silence him. Despite their threats, He didn’t retrace his steps but suffered the ignominious death on the cross, thereby showing solidarity with those who suffer for the right cause. Jesus was uncompromising in his jihad, fighting evil and injustice. Good Friday is a time to remember Jesus Christ’s crucifixion to atone for mankind’s sins and it is time when the suffering of Jesus on the cross became a ransom which he paid for people’s sin. Many followers spend this day in fasting, prayer, repentance, and meditation on the agony and suffering of Christ on the cross.

Jesus was arrested by the Temple Guards in the gardens of Gethsemane, on Maundy Thursday. Judas Iscariot, a disciple of Jesus, who received money to betray him, guided Jesus to the garden. Judas has told the guards that whomever he kisses is Jesus. After the arrest of Jesus he was taken to the house of Annas (father in law of the high priest Caiaphas) for interrogation, and then sent bound to Caiaphas. The high priest condemns Jesus on charges of blasphemy and the Sanhedim Trial of Jesus concurs with death sentence. The solidiers mocked Jesus by dressing him in a purple robe and putting a crown of thorns on his head. Then they stripped him, made him carry a heavy wooden cross to a place called Golgotha. At Golgotha the soldiers nailed Jesus to the cross along with two theives crucified on either side of him. 

The biblical account of Jesus' crucifixion and his resurrection can be found in the following passages of Scripture: Mathew 27:27-28:8; Mark 15:16-16:19; Luke 23:26-24:35; and John 19:16-20:30.

In spite of being falsely implicated, ill-treated and tortured this is what the last words Jesus Christ spoke on the cross "Father, forgive them, because they do not know what they are doing". This could be found in Luke 23:24 in Bible.

The hands of Jesus spread on the cross tell how much he loves us. Apart from observing Good Friday let us also discover on this occasion the Christ consciousness in us.