Good Friday

. Jesus' entire body would at last be an unrecognizable mass of torn tissue matted with blood and serum... Throwing His own raiment over His half-swooning body, the Roman Soldiers next forced Him to shoulder the crossbeam to which He should be nailed. The flesh was so weakened by now through emotional exhaustion and loss of blood that the dear Lord Jesus staggered under the load. The crossbeam (sometimes weighing over 100 pounds) was too much, so they pressed a stranger from Cyrene into service...

Once at the site of the crucifixion our Lord would have been froced to lie flat on the ground with His arms stretched apart above His head. Taking a rough, square spike, the centurion on duty would have driven it through His wrist into the crossbeam. The second crude nail would follow into the other wrist...

Fixed firmly in place by the cruel nails, the limp form of Jesus would be hauled by the crossbeam up the pole... Again the searching thumb of the centurion would feel for the indentation between bones, the long spike would be hammered through His feet into the wood beneath.

The excruciating agony of the spike burning though the nerves between the metatarsal bones of the feet jerk the body of the Saviour erect, only to have the leg muscles convulse and drive His body downward. This places body weight on the wrist nails so that the flamming pain explodes in the brain of the Victim as the median nerves shriek their signal of torment. Then, as the muscles of the arms and legs show fatigue, an awful series of spasms cramp Him in positions which make the drawing of breath more difficult. Suffocation drives desperate muscles into action as the gibbeted One strives for oxygen. Then, in the midst of the muscle-tearing convulsions and the sucking in of air which cannot be exhaled until the build-up of carbon dioxide in the lungs and the blood stream relieve the cramps, the glorious Son of God speaks to those about Him!

Then, after having endured hours and hours of unbelievable torture, the final agonies prophetically described in the 22nd Psalm begin to set in. The compressed heart pumps the sluggish, thickening blood into the tissues, becoming like wax melting down into the midst of the bowels. The awful shock to the heart by the locking-cramps, and its constriction by the fluid in the pericardium, blends the watery fluid of the heart sac and the heavy blood from its interior. Having given up His pure Spirit to the Father, at His own will, the Lord Jesus dies. His work on behalf of sinners is finished.

-Duane Spencer

That is what Jesus did for YOU. Remember It