When they came together in Galilee, he said to them, ‘The Son of Man is going to be delivered into the hands of men. They will kill him, and on the third day he will be raised to life.’ And the disciples were filled with grief.
Matthew 17:22-23 NIVUK
Funeral traditions around the world are a startling glimpse into our cultural differences. In the UK, funerals are sombre affairs and the deceased is either buried in the ground or burned. In India, in Hindu society, the deceased is cremated on a funeral pyre. In the Philippines, they are interred above the ground in concrete caskets or, in the case of a tribe in the northern Cordillera region, in holes high up in a mountainside. One tribe in Malaysia even removes the dead person from their coffin on their birthday, dresses them up, seats them at a table and has a birthday party with the corpse sitting right there.
We would regard this as downright macabre.
In New Orleans, they sometimes do something we think is a little unusual. A brass band leads the way to the graveside, playing sombre music. The deceased is buried. And then, as the funeral party leaves the graveside, they are led away by the band, which plays upbeat, cheerful tunes, while others dance behind them.
My austere, stiff-upper-lip culture here in the UK would find that a little odd.
With the benefit of hindsight, we might find the disciples' reaction here a little odd too. We know why Jesus went to the cross. We know He rose from the dead. We know the incredibly glory He achieved (Philippians 2:9-11).
But we maybe don't understand why they were mourning. And not just mourning. The Greek word here can also mean 'sorrowful' or 'uneasy'. It's used to describe the emotional response of the rich young ruler when he could not surrender his riches to follow Christ (Matthew 19:22), and the disciples' horror at finding out that one of them would betray Jesus (Matthew 26:22; Mark 14:19), and, perhaps most poignantly, of how Jesus felt in Gethsemane (Matthew 26:37).
There were three reasons, all linked to things they were about to lose.
Firstly, there was loss of their Saviour. He would die. In their eyes, this would mean failure in the mission they believed He had come to earth to carry out - deliver them from the Romans.
Secondly, there was loss of their friend. In our day, the cross has been sanitised, almost Disneyfied. We like to forget that it was - and still is - an instrument of the most cruel and undignified torture. We recoil with horror when we think that our beloved Jesus had to go through it for us. But think of what it would have meant to these disciples. They were more familiar with it than we ever could. They had seen it - regularly, up close and personal. The very thought that their friend could undergo that would have caused intense sadness.
Thirdly, there was the loss of hope. These disciples had left everything to follow Jesus (Matthew 19:27; Mark 10:28). They had put their trust and hope in Him as the Messiah (Matthew 16:16; Mark 1:1, 8:29; John 1:41, 4:29). And these were not easy times to believe in anyone as the Messiah.
Yet now all hope seemed to be lost. Their Messiah was heading towards certain death. And the Jewish leader Gamaliel, a member of the Sanhedrin, provides us with evidence that this was not the first time someone had claimed to be something special but had been killed for it (Acts 5:34-39).
The dramatic loss of hope that had followed the demise of these self-styled Messiahs had caused their followers to scatter. The disciples were not just looking at the end of their friend but the end of their movement - the end of something deeply special that they had risked everything for. They were looking at being just another failed religious movement. That would have hurt deeply.
Yes, Jesus had told them He would rise from the dead. But even from the early days, since right after Jesus' transfiguration, we read these words:
As they were coming down the mountain, Jesus gave them orders not to tell anyone what they had seen until the Son of Man had risen from the dead. They kept the matter to themselves, discussing what ‘rising from the dead’ meant.
Mark 9:9-10 NIVUK
They simply could not believe that anyone could rise from the dead - not even Jesus. And so if He were to die, their hope would die with Him.
But there is another reason why grief is absolutely the right reaction to the cross. This is a difficult reason, especially nowadays, but it has to be said.
We should grieve at the thought of our Saviour dying on the cross because it is our sin that put him there:
God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.
2 Corinthians 5:21 NIVUK
‘He himself bore our sins’ in his body on the cross, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness; ‘by his wounds you have been healed.’
1 Peter 2:24 NIVUK
But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was on him, and by his wounds we are healed.
Isaiah 53:5 NIVUK
For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God. He was put to death in the body but made alive in the Spirit.
1 Peter 3:18 NIVUK
Many Evangelicals live in Easter Sunday, in the unbridled joy of the victory that Christ won over the grave. And that is quite right.
But the road to Easter Sunday must lead through Good Friday. Before we reach the resurrection, we must first grieve at the foot of the cross. But not as the world grieves. We are not grieving for a dear departed religious leader.
No, we are grieving for ourselves. We are grieving for our own sins that drove Jesus to that cross. We bow before an ancient instrument of torture and we feel profound sorrow that the cross was even necessary at all.
But again, this sorrow is not worldly sorrow. This is sorrow with a purpose:
Godly sorrow brings repentance that leads to salvation and leaves no regret, but worldly sorrow brings death.
2 Corinthians 7:10 NIVUK
Godly sorrow leads us to confess and repent of our sins. Godly sorrow motivates us to live better. Godly sorrow is a tough, but utterly necessary, teacher in the school of personal holiness that one day, in eternity, will lead to us graduating in Christlikeness.
Too many so-called Christians can't stand this feeling of sorrow. So what do they do? They argue against the cross like Peter did. Or they block it out and deliberately fail to understand it, as all the disciples did. Or they skip it and jump right to Easter Sunday because they just don't want to feel the pain of such deep sorrow.
But the ultimate reward in growth and holiness comes when we are prepared to fully embrace the feeling of sorrow over the need for the cross, and our own personal part in it.
This isn't easy. It is tough and it is humbling. But it is the only way to grow in Christ.
Because this is how we take up our cross and follow Him.
Question
1) Considering all that the disciples had to lose when Jesus died, do you believe they were right to feel sorrow at Jesus telling them He would die?
2) 'The road to Easter Sunday must lead through Good Friday'. Have you ever thought of Good Friday as a painful reminder of your own sinfulness? How will you build this into your Easter celebrations?
3) How do you feel when you see a cross, or the elements on a Communion table? Do you feel sorry for your sins that caused Jesus to have to die? How will this help you to repent of them?
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