Today, prison officials allowed us the privilege of conducting our own Good Friday service, being we no longer have a Protestant chaplain...
The hour's gathering with about 45 men in attendance went well. We sang and praised the Lord together. But the best part was when seven different men, who had been chosen ahead of time, each got his turn to share with the congregation one of the seven public sayings the Lord Jesus uttered while He was dying on Calvary's cross.
Mine was Matthew 27:46. So when it was my turn to speak, I opened my Bible and read to the men, "And about the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying, Eli, EIi, la-ma- sa-back-thani? That is to say, 'My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?'"
In my allotted time of five minutes, I explained how that, because sin separates us from having a relationship with God, Jesus himself, as the "suffering servant," and in order to be able to sympathize with fallen humanity, needed to experience the intense emotional pain that such separation causes.
I also told the church that Psalm 22, which happens to be very prophetic, provides for us the perfect portrait of Christ's agony and anguish when He gave His life as an offering for our sins. In addition, that the Lord Jesus cried out with these words at exactly the same time of the ninth hour - when the Passover lambs were being sacrificed in the Holy Temple. Christ, I said, was our personal Passover Lamb who tasted death for all of us, once and for all!
D.B.
Mine was Matthew 27:46. So when it was my turn to speak, I opened my Bible and read to the men, "And about the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying, Eli, EIi, la-ma- sa-back-thani? That is to say, 'My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?'"
In my allotted time of five minutes, I explained how that, because sin separates us from having a relationship with God, Jesus himself, as the "suffering servant," and in order to be able to sympathize with fallen humanity, needed to experience the intense emotional pain that such separation causes.
I also told the church that Psalm 22, which happens to be very prophetic, provides for us the perfect portrait of Christ's agony and anguish when He gave His life as an offering for our sins. In addition, that the Lord Jesus cried out with these words at exactly the same time of the ninth hour - when the Passover lambs were being sacrificed in the Holy Temple. Christ, I said, was our personal Passover Lamb who tasted death for all of us, once and for all!
D.B.
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