Editor’s Note: this week, a very different set of Connect Devotionals because this week is unlike all others. Each writer this week will invite you to explore a different passage:  the “cleansing of the Temple” (Monday), the argument about paying taxes to Caesar (Tuesday), the “great commandment” (Wednesday), the Last Supper and Gethsemane (Thursday), and the culmination of this week on Good Friday.  We hope that what we write will invite you to a deeper engagement with these Scriptures, as well as with the entire narrative of this week that began on a joy-filled Sunday and ended on a terrible Friday we now call “Good.” We hope you’ll read what we write.  Even more, we hope you will dive into what Matthew, Mark, Luke and John wrote!

When they came to the place called the Skull, they crucified him there, along with the criminals—one on his right, the other on his left (Luke 23: 33).

Here’s how the “Jesus” movie plays in my head.  The first two hours are beautiful and inspirational, covering his three years of ministry.  The last thirty minutes are triumphant and redemptive, as the movie joyfully celebrates his resurrection.  The crucifixion of Jesus is a quick, two-minute montage of his pain, suffering, and death.

I’m challenging myself to revise how that movie plays in my head today.  By speeding through the crucifixion, it is easy for me to overlook a central truth about Jesus. While he was divine, Jesus was also fully human.  And Jesus suffered through the horrible ordeal acting as his fully human self.  

If you wanted to find the perfect intersection of physical, emotional, and psychological suffering and death a human could inflict on another human, crucifixion would land directly in its center. And Jesus took on this painful death fully human.

Jesus calls for forgiveness for those engaged in the most terrible of actions.  Fully human was the man who cried out, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.”  

Jesus accepts his burden, ignoring the insults of those challenging him to use his divinity to stop his suffering. Fully human Jesus endures his suffering, even while being taunted. “Aren’t you the Messiah? Save yourself and us!” cries one of the criminals.  

Jesus invites a man who has lived a lifetime of sin into the kingdom of heaven. Fully human, and dying on the cross, Jesus still shines as a beacon of salvation in the last moments of the sinful life of another man.  “Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in paradise,” Jesus answers.

My own life is not always easy.  I have my own moments of physical, emotional, and psychological pain to endure.  Sin and temptation are all around.  But the crucifixion story tells me that Jesus knows me and understands my pain. He chose to endure all this pain as a human being, just like me. 

I’ve replaced that two-minute montage in my “Jesus” movie with a deep focus on the crucifixion of the fully human Jesus.  His divinity did not mean that he got to skip past the pain and suffering, our pain and suffering.

Through his divinity Jesus dies for our sins, conquers death, and rises again.  Sin and death did not have the last word in the life of Jesus, and, in Him, their power over me has been broken.  The shame and pain of my sin aren’t denied or ignored, nor are they minimized. They are embraced by Jesus, and I am redeemed.

Walk slowly with Jesus today. Take time to reflect deeply on the pain and suffering of Jesus’s crucifixion and focus on the fact that he suffered through it all as fully human. What pains you? What suffering is in your life? Bring that before Jesus on this Good Friday.