Friday, March 21, 2008

 

How Will they Know Series

 

Matthew 27:22 “What shall we do, then, with Jesus who is called the Christ” Pilate asked.  They all answered, “Crucify Him!” 

 

A Horribly Surreal Experience

 

There are some experiences in lifetime that are surreal.   A surreal experience is something that is so bizarre and out of the normal patterns of life that it seems completely unreal.    I found being evacuated from Hurricane Camille from Dauphin Island as a teenager in the middle of the night surreal.   I found the two week period one December when I participated in ten funerals, one of them being my father, a completely surreal experience.   I remember working at camp as a young person and being in the middle of a lightening storm where lightening was terrifyingly crashing all around me and the children at that camp a surreal experience.   People who have been caught up in experiences that are beyond the pale of their ordinary existence commonly describe it as surreal.  

The Friday of Holy Week was a completely surreal experience for the disciples.   It was so out of their expectation that it seemed as if the world was rotating around them and they were lost in a panorama of human emotions.    They had come from the Last Supper with the experience of Jesus speaking in a way they could not imagine.   He said that one of them would betray Him and that Simon Peter, his greatest proponent among the disciples, would deny Him.   He had gone to Gethsemane and took Peter, James, and John with Him where he prayed to be spared the events just ahead and sweated great drops of blood.   

 

Judas had come with guards from the temple court, kissed Him, and immediately Jesus was arrested.   Peter feebly tried to defend Him by cutting off a servant’s ear, and Jesus healed him as he had done so many.   He was dragged to the house of Caiaphas, the High Priest.  As Peter waited in the courtyard, the whole Sanhedrin made false evidence against Him.   They hit Jesus and spit in his face.   The words of Jesus came true.  In the courtyard, Peter did indeed do as Jesus predicted, and as the rooster crowed three times, disowned him.  

 

Jesus’ words at the dinner about Judas were to be true.   He had taken money for Jesus’ betrayal and then Judas inexplicably hung himself.

 

Jesus appeared before Pilate, the Roman governor.  Pilate wanted to release Barrabas instead of Jesus but this was not done.   The same people who supported him on his triumphant entry screamed, “Crucify Him!” He was beaten, stripped, humiliated, and then taken to the cross and brutally, horribly killed between two thieves.  

 

It was so surreal, so irrationally bizarre, that the disciples were caught in utter despair and darkness.   The oppression of evil left everyone terrified in a darkness they could taste. 

 

Prayer:

Dear God, please don’t leave me in this surreal darkness.  Amen.