Three Hours

 All  the suffering, all the tragedy, all the pain, all the heartache, all the failures, all the wars, all the injustices, all the unfairness, all the adversity, all the hatred, all the sickness and all the sin that was, is, and will ever be is summed up today.

All of that was absorbed by Jesus Christ in those three hours hanging on the cross.

Three Hours.

Abandoned by His friends, beaten, whipped, Nailed to a cross with thorns ripping through his head. His pain. 

In those three hours He took it all on.

“My God, My God! Why have you abandoned me?”

Sin is the separation between us and God. In those three hours, He took all of the sin of all men on His shoulders. Maybe for the first time in His life, He could feel that separation. And for Jesus that may have been worse pain of all.

At 3 PM Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior died.

What could possibly be like to be an apostle, standing there, staring at the cross? “ How could this happen to this innocent man? He was the Messiah. I watched his miracles. I saw him raise Lazarus from the dead. And now he’s gone”

What was it like to be Peter. The leader, Jesus’s best friend. He denied even knowing Him, three times. The guilt, the shame, the pain of conscience. Peter’s world had just fallen apart.

Of course, they would know in a few days that Jesus would conquer death and sin. 

But today, Good Friday, we need to reflect on this perfect sacrifice.

“Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.”

Jesus loves each of us so much. Unconditionally. So much that He was willing to offer His life for each of us. 

So today, sometime between 12 and 3PM take a moment. Close your eyes and see Jesus on the cross. 

Close your eyes and look up at the cross and see Him. All your fears, disappointments, pain, heartaches, errors, wrongdoing, and suffering are with Him. Its Ok and right to feel sad, to feel sorry, to feel like Peter. 

Everything we are, everything we have, all whom we love and our path to eternal life in heaven is because of Him…….

and those three hours.