Good Friday - Pierced

It is not just a nail.  It is a very big and long nail. Six inches long.

During the years I traveled for business, I liked to pick up handicrafts that were unique to the city or country that was my temporary home. One trip to the Middle East, we had dinner at a restaurant built like an ancient ship. This nail was given to each of us, a replica of the nails used to hold together the seafaring ships of many centuries ago. 

A nail with a size that might have been useful for more than just ships.

Our Lord Jesus died by Roman crucifixion. The execution using nails, nails very much like the one I now have, to affix the condemned to a wooden support that was lifted just above the ground.  The prisoner, in order to breath, was forced to use their pierced hands and feet to lift themselves up. At some point pain and exhaustion prevailed.

A few years ago a movie, The Passion of the Christ, sought to show us the horror of execution by crucifixion. It was a very effective visual reminder of what Jesus went through on that Friday centuries ago.

The Gospels tell us the story of the crucifixion of Jesus, his words during those final hours, and the actions of his enemies, friends, family, and bystanders.  But what may be the best description of what happened to Jesus and what it means to us was written by the prophet Isaiah hundreds of years before that Friday.

“He was despised and rejected—

a man of sorrows, acquainted with deepest grief.

We turned our backs on him and looked the other way.

He was despised, and we did not care.

Yet it was our weaknesses he carried;

it was our sorrows that weighed him down.

And we thought his troubles were a punishment from God,

a punishment for his own sins!

But he was pierced for our rebellion,

crushed for our sins.

He was beaten so we could be whole.

He was whipped so we could be healed.” (Isaiah 53:3-5)

Oh, God. Never let me forget how Jesus was pierced so that I could be whole.