Good Friday

We'll finish up our discussion of Covenants over the next few days, but today is Good Friday, the day the Savior was crucified, a day which is widely celebrated in Christianity but less so among the LDS.  This year it happens to fall on April 6th.


In remembrance of our Savior, I wanted to share an excerpt from the book, He Chose the Nails, by Max Lucado.  To me it remains one of the most beautiful descriptions of the crucifixion that I've read.  I hope you enjoy it and invite you to ponder it today along with me.

Come with me to the hill of Calvary.

Watch as the soldiers shove the Carpenter to the ground and stretch his arms against the beams.  One presses a knee against a forearm and a spike against a hand.  Jesus turns his face toward the nail just as the soldier lifts the hammer to strike it.

Couldn’t Jesus have stopped him?  With a flex of the biceps, with a clench of the fist, he could have resisted.  Is this not the same hand that stilled the sea?  Cleansed the Temple?  Summoned the dead?

But the fist doesn’t clench…and the moment isn’t aborted.  The mallet rings and the blood begins to drip, then rush.  Then the questions follow.  Why?   Why didn’t Jesus resist?

Because he loved us, we reply.  That is true, wonderfully true, but—forgive me—only partially true.  There is more to his reason.  He saw something that made him stay.  As the soldier pressed his arm, Jesus rolled his head to the side, and with his cheek resting on the wood he saw:

A mallet? Yes.

A nail? Yes.

The soldiers hand? Yes.

But he saw something else….

The crowd at the cross concluded that the purpose of the pounding was to skewer the hands of Christ to a beam.  But they were only half right.  We can’t fault them for missing the other half.  They couldn’t see it.  But Jesus could.  And heaven could.  And we can.

Through the eyes of Scripture we see what others missed but what Jesus saw.  “He canceled the record that contained the charges against us.  He took it and destroyed it by nailing it to Christ’s cross.”  (Col. 2:14 NLT)

Between his hand and the wood there was a list.  A long list.  A list of our mistakes:  our lusts and lies and greedy moments and prodigal years.  A list of our sins.

Dangling from the cross is an itemized catalog of your sins.  The bad decisions from last year.  The bad attitudes from last week.  There in broad daylight is a list of your mistakes.

This is why he refused to close his fist.  He saw the list!  What kept him from resisting?  This warrant, this tabulation of your failures.  He knew the price of those sins was death.  He knew the source of those sins was you, and since he couldn’t bear the thought of eternity without you, he chose the nails.

The hand squeezing the handle was not just a Roman infantryman.

The force behind the hammer was not just an angry mob.

The verdict behind the death was not decided by jealous Jews.

Jesus himself chose the nails.

So the hands of Jesus opened up.  Had the soldier hesitated, Jesus himself would have swung the mallet.  He knew how; he was no stranger to the driving of nails.  As a carpenter he knew what it took.  And as the Savior he knew what it meant.  He knew that the purpose of the nail was to place your sins where they could be hidden by his sacrifice and covered by his blood.

So Jesus himself swung the hammer.

The same hand that stills the seas stills your guilt.

The same hand that cleansed the Temple cleanses your heart.

The hand is the hand of God.

The nail is the nail of God.

And as the hands of Jesus opened for the nail, the doors of heaven opened for you.