If I knew what Columba and I would experience that night and the next day, I wondered if either of us would have pursued Yeshua and those who arrested Him. Still I am thankful for having been there.
Part 10 Truly this man was the Son of God! Mark 15:39
The Passion and Burial of Our Lord
Columba cried out: “Jon, will your God rescue His Son? Why must He suffer such pain?”
I knew why and needed to tell my friend the reason. “He suffers for our sins and for those of all men. He pays the price for justice. We know that God is just as well as merciful. The mystery is one of God’s love for us. Yeshua is like a lamb led to slaughter, a sacrifice offered like the lambs that are being slain for the Passover Feast.”
Yet it was even difficult for me, raised a Jew, to accept this. How much more beyond the understanding of a Roman. If God allowed this for His own Son, what would become of the friends of Yeshua?
“He is trying to speak. Listen,” Josephus said.
Woman, behold, your son! Son, behold your mother! He said, looking down at His mother and John who stood close to the foot of the cross.
In His agony the Son of God expressed concern for His mother. It was a human quality, love for one’s mother. This man hanging on the cross was both human and divine.
Yeshua said, I thirst.
One of the guards took a sponge, dipped it in a vessel of wine, and stuck it on a sprig of hyssop. Lifting the sponge to Yeshua’s mouth, they tried to make Him drink, but He refused. The guard removed it from Him.
Yeshua spoke saying, My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
He felt abandoned by our Lord just as I had at times. I knew He was God’s Son yet also human. We never saw His Father. Now we had seen the Son face to face.
Minutes later he said, It is Finished.
We realized Yeshua would not be rescued by His Father. He spoke from the cross one last time.
Into Your hands I commend My Spirit.
The wind swept over Golgotha. The earth shook, and a chasm in the solid rock surface separated us from our friends. Columba and I were nearer the cross on one side of the fissure and Josephus and Simon on the other. Darkness unlike any I had seen in daytime covered Golgotha and the Temple area beyond.
DJ Pasternak, Author 