He began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things…
Mark 8:31
We’re following the story of Holy Week. On Palm Sunday, Jesus entered Jerusalem. On Monday, He ran the money changers out of the temple. Tuesday was taken up with questions from Jesus’ opponents, who were trying to trap Him. On Tuesday evening, Jesus taught His disciples about the glorious hope of His second coming.
The Gospels do not record any events on Wednesday, so we can safely assume that our Lord rested in preparation for what He was about to endure. Then we come to the events of Thursday, the night of the Last Supper, when Jesus prayed in the garden of Gethsemane, and He was betrayed and arrested.
The suffering of Christ came in three stages: First, He suffered at the hands of his friends—Judas betrayed Him, Peter denied Him, and all the disciples ran away from Him. Then, in the second stage, Jesus suffered at the hands of His enemies—they mocked Him, tortured Him, condemned Him, and crucified Him. But the deepest level of Christ’s suffering was not at the hands of His friends or His enemies, it was what He suffered at the hand of God.
Darkness came over the whole land and Jesus bore our sins, endured our judgement, and experienced all the dimensions of hell for us on the cross. And in the agony of this suffering, He lost even the help of God: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”
What do you think was the deepest level of Jesus’ suffering on the cross—from His friends, from His enemies, or at the hand of God?
