Spoken Word // O Praise The Name (Good Friday)

Sacrificed. Slaughtered. Slain.
The reality of his demise forgotten so let me explain. It began with a kiss, something so bliss. Given as a signal, a spoil, a curse, not as a gift, it’s intention perverse. “Do what you came for, friend…’ he said, accepting, awaiting the cold bitter end. Gethsemane his home in the hours prior, while he contemplated his end, fear and desire. Begging and praying for any other way, for the burden of suffering, his life he lay.
Accepting his fate “Lord, if it be your will…” he submitted to his father, the prophesy to fulfil. He sweat blood, he did! And, I mean that literally, its called Hemotohidrosis. It is a rare mystery. A symptom of someone immensely distressed, his body weeping it would soon be a mess. Step one brings the scourging, a torturous plan, designed to tear flesh and muscle from man. At first he was stripped, tied, bound and whipped, to face such a pain, no being equipped. 39 lashes was likely the blow, how he endured it I will never know. Whips laced with shards and fragments of bone, not a fit treatment for the heir to a throne. They tore through his skin, through flesh and muscle, and pulled it back through, to tarnish, to tousle. So open your eyes, see his pain in view, Jesus now we turn directly to you.

Moving on to a crown, of thorns not of gold, one with a torture so brutal and cold. Inches long, sharp and precise, they’d penetrate the skin, through scalp they’d slice. Blood poured so freely from our saviours head, meandered down his body, this pain I dread Then to the cross, a vessel of death, this one to take the lords “final” breath.
Splintered and rough, heavy and tough, he must carry it miles, as if he hadn’t endured enough. Naked he struggled through streets lined with crowds, his flesh hanging off, dust, blood, puss his shroud. Splinters poking and pulling the skin, until he reached Skull Hill the finale to begin. Laid on the cross, his arms pulled apart, exposing his body, his wounds and his heart. Large rusty nails glided through skin, through tendon and nerve, through bone they went in. This severed his support, put his weight on his feet, which also had nails, his torment incomplete. Once erected he’d have struggled to gasp for a breath, this method created to bring slowly a death. To push against wounds unbelievable yet true, he pressed on the nails, breath he drew. For hours he suffocated, bleeding and broken, before “it is finished,” one final token. The end of the road, for Jesus had come, his light was gone, or so believed some. His body now hung, lifeless and cold, a spear through his side, just 33 years old.

The sky had gone black, a curtain had torn, the land was shaken, his friends must now morn. Taken down from the cross, our burden he bore, the son of man, his body so raw. Imagine the horrors his mother endured, watching her son, our king and lord.
They wrapped him in cloth, laid him in a tomb, a place fit for death, but for him a womb. Denied 3 times, sorted and dealt with, not quite forgotten, like some tale or myth. But this wasn’t that, for a promise he kept, a prophesy unfolding whilst others just wept. Believe him or not, a friend has just died, one who stayed away from sin, greed or pride.

That third was a shock and a horror for some, for others it certified all that had come. A game to kill Jesus, they thought they’d won, now they felt shame at all they had done. Our God gave a promise, his love will endure, and save us from sins, this battle, this war. His glory appeared and spread like a wave, for death was defeated, he’s back from the grave. See Jesus came back, or never was gone, his body was broken but his spirit had won. Our God the father and Jesus his son, will come to your rescue despite what you’ve done. He paid it already, the debt for your sin, and opened the gates so that all may come in. Because the King that endured and suffered the most is the king of forgiveness, the most gracious host.

Perhaps you’ve been doubting, a little, a lot, but that’s not a good use of the love that you’ve got. You’ve been waiting for answers to many a prayer, but God is not absent and his timing is fair. You see there’s a symbol, plain and true, it is one of a God who runs toward you. If he died for you, and rose 3 days on, he says to you now, your doubt has not won.

For coming again in glorious fire, he promises to do, from his home up higher. And I believe he will, return in a blaze, the light of the world, on him we gaze.
If you have your doubts, of all he can do, acknowledge the suffering he went through for you. For starting a religion was never his plan, relationship was his goal, between him and man.

For this symbol we seek wasn’t the end but the start, one that continued to awaken our hearts. Proof of the power that we must all now hail, because on that cross my God did not fail. He overcame sin through ridicule and pain, and he says to us all, I would do it again.