The hill receives him as it had received many before. Yet the burden Jesus carries is unlike any other. The gathered ruin of all humanity rests upon him. Our sin was indelibly pressed into his weary shoulders. “Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows” (Isaiah 53:4).
We rarely speak openly of sin, as if we can ignore it and make it theoretical. But on Dark Friday, sin has a certain weight. The nails didn’t pierce a hypothesis; they render flesh bloody. Jesus accepts this willingly, without hesitation. On the cross, what was ours becomes his. “Yet it was the will of the Lord to crush him; he has put him to grief” (Isaiah 53:10). We recoil from such suffering, for it is severe, brutal, and final. Dark Friday gives it a face.
The day ended while the crowds thinned. The body was taken down and placed where only mourning could follow. “How can this be?” We stand at this moment and see only loss. “He was cut off out of the land of the living” (Isaiah 53:8). We are limp with misery, shock, and silence. And yet, we know that something has shifted.
The earth had trembled beneath the feet. The veil had been torn from top to bottom. What was inaccessible is now open to all. When Jesus cried, “It is finished,” did he only mean physical death? Or did he also mean that his spiritual work was finished?
The stone is still in place, but it is no longer the final word. Can we truly hope that God has completed what we cannot see? We must now wait, not in gloom, but in faith. We keep watch in the darkness, knowing it will not remain. For it is Friday, but Sunday’s coming.
