a Love Story – Blackest Friday – February 22

a LOVE STORY
February 22nd, 2021

Blackest Friday

Matthew 26:37b-40a, ‘However, an intense feeling of great sorrow plunged His soul into deep sorrow and agony. And He said to them, “My heart is overwhelmed and crushed with grief. It feels as though I’m dying. Stay here and keep watch with Me.” Then He walked a short distance away, and overcome with grief, He threw Himself facedown on the ground and prayed, “My Father, if there is any way You can deliver Me from this suffering, please take it from Me. Yet what I want is not important, for I only desire to fulfill Your plan for Me.”’ (TPT)

The Father knew the sound of His heart shattering could be heard across the universe. His grief shadowed the earth, His one and only Son had just lost His trial and had been given the death penalty. He was being led like a sheep to its slaughter. The men had flogged Jesus on all sides, had drug Him through the throngs of people as if He were a sack of trash. It was as if He had committed an unforgiveable offense. The irony of it was, every person, every person, the onlookers, the bystanders, the naysayers, the judge and jury, all of them could have been tried for some form of treason yet the One Who was guilty of not one single offense was the one being handed a sentence without life.

The Master held His breath even though He knew how this would go. He had always known the end from the beginning. He had designed it. But it took His breath away to see the treachery with which they treated His Son. Tears ran down the Father’s cheeks as He watched the blood drip from His Son’s brow, a dried wreath of thorns crowning His head like a satirical king. He went to step in, a Father to save the day, to rescue His boy, to stop the torture of His only Son, and realized He could not. He had fashioned eternity knowing this very detail. But when He was writing the script, He hadn’t reckoned these emotions.

The Father wept unabashedly, and the sound of steel on steel as nails were driven through His hands, pierced the atmosphere. He sunk to His knees, the Lord God hiding His head in His hands; He could not visualize much more. The echo of that wooden tree being dropped into its moorings resounded through all the generations that had passed by, and the paradox assaulted Him. The Creator had to grasp that He’d created the world for whom His Son had to die; He was being hung on a tree planted in soil He’d nurtured; and, soon the light He’d breathed into existence to eat the darkness of the world would be no more. His one and only Son would bear all the disasters since the Father had fathomed the world into place, and the pain of that understanding nearly caused His heart to stop.

Suddenly a voice cried out. It clinched the Father’s attention as it shredded time. “Abba! Father!” His Son called out, and the Father stretched out His arms to His Son. But like a slap of reality, He was snapped to comprehension. At once, His beautiful boy was disfigured, marred, defaced by every corruption and evil, every sinister thing, while it shrouded His Son, the Savior of the world, He would heal the entire creation His Father so loved but the cost was unmistakable. The Creator clutched at His chest, the ache so great as the attack on His heart was almost more than the Father could withstand. He had been crushed by many things since He’d dreamt of fellowship and companionship and perfect peace. But the moment He had to turn His back on His Son and walk away, was more excruciating than ever known by the Creator. Because in His chest, beat the heart of a Father, and for that bond, there were no boundaries too great to cross.

For what seemed like an eternity a wall of ugliness, an abyss of sin, a burning lava lake, stood between He and His Son. and the Almighty God, Creator of the universe, felt so empty as the world went black and a rip echoed through the night. Three days seemed like another eternity.

During the month of February,
come with me as we JOURNEY through
the greatest LOVE STORY ever written.