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Where you there when they crucified your Lord? Well no, you were not; you hadn't even been born yet. The passion and crucifixion happened 2,000 years ago and you don't have a "time machine." And yet....and yet; God knew you. God knew you and elected you to salvation even before the foundation of the world. He knew you were the blackened and dead children of your parents Adam and Eve. He knew you were the warped, brittle, and cracked branches of their foul vine. He knew that by nature you would bring forth stubble, thorns, shriveled husks rather than abundant fresh grapes, olives, figs or wheat-heads heavy with grain.

So in a "sense" you were there on blood marked trail to the Tree; you were there in the crowd of angry "little" faces shouting out "crucify Him, crucify Him." Your gigantic sea of sins was there pushing the Christ down and smothering Him.

It should have been that blasted sinner, Simon of Cyrene who was crucified, not the innocent Lord of Life. It should have been you pulled from the crowd and given what you really deserve; what you've got coming; what you know in your heart of hearts really belongs to you by way of comeuppance and justice.

So you are there on the Via Dolorosa, the "Way of Suffering," if only by way of memory, remembrance, and projection; good enough. You are there in that great "court room" of God, slinking in the back of the chamber amidst the rest of your rebel rats, when you know you should be sitting in the dock when sentence is passed. You are there on the hillock, peeking around and over the taller conspirators (your family, friends, and co-workers) witnessing what those Roman professionals are doing to Him; what they're so capable of doing with hammer and spikes. And you hear the weeping. You hear the audible sobbing and breathe-catching.

Repent of your sins; repent of your sinful condition. Have a contrite heart that is awash with salty tears of remorse (be they physical tears or mental tears; or both). But note well why you're crying, and for whom you weep. Don't cry for the Lord. Don't feel sorry for Jesus. Good Friday is most definitely NOT about some overly emotional, highly dramatic, empathetic sharing of enthusiasm over the Nazarene's woes. Do not weep for the Lord.

For to cry over Him puts you a very close step to Simon Peter who once protested the cross itself: "Nay Lord, this shall never happen to You." It is good that Jesus was betrayed, abandoned, falsely condemned, humiliated, spit upon, slapped, whipped, crowned, and treed. It is good that Jesus died. He died for you.

We don't need to see this portrayed in actual action sequences; we don't need a detailed "C.S.I" flashback reconstruction; we don't need to graphically explain each medical certainty in such a way as to elicit sniffing. We don't sniff for the Rabbi.

The Passion account from the "Disciple of Love" the blessed Saint John is read. The Holy Ghost uses the Words of The Word to reach you, to convert you again, to cause you to be slain, and then to bring you the sweet message of love, forgiveness and peace.

But this is Good Friday after all, and if one of the predominate meditations you are left with is your own sinful condition, apart from the Savior's abundant Grace---then very good, that will make it a Good Friday.

The infamous and most horrible criminal killer, John Wayne Gacy was brought to trial in 1980, Cook County Criminal Courts, Chicago, for the grisly deaths of 42 men, 29 of whose bodies where buried in his basement under an elaborate crawl space covered over with a wooden trap-door. Gacy was a horrible, horrible sinner. But it's true theologically speaking and it's true in God's own counsel, that your sins of omission and commission are as heinous in the sight of the all perfect, just and true God as any serial killer's murders. Weep not for Jesus; weep for the pathetic Gacy (who according to evidence died a non-remorseful pagan). Weep for yourself.

At the closing arguments of the Gacy trial, after the Defense had made an emotional, impassioned, plea to save Gacy; stressing all the "good things" he had done, it was the Prosecutors turn. The prosecution at an earlier phase of the proceedings had had a mock-up full-size wooden trap door built and placed in the court room for the jurors to see exactly what the size and shape of the covering to the mass tomb had looked like. The trap-door was still in the court room at the time of the D.A.'s closing speech. Also in the packed court room was an over-sized bulletin board with glossy 81/2 x 11 photos of each of the 29 dead men whom Gacy had discarded. Instead of making a speech to the jurors, the Prosecutor simply stood up, slowly walked over to the board and ripped the first picture off. Then he walked over to the trap-door, opened it up and tossed the photo down into it. He let the door slam shut. Over the heated objections of the Defense Lawyer, the Judge permitted the D.A. to finish his demonstrative closing...28 more trips, slow trips to the board and trap-door. The packed court-room was stunned into total riveting silence...until one by one people were overcome and began to softly weep.

Fellow sinners, there is not a bulletin board with your pictures, there is rather a bulletin board with each and every sin you've ever committed, and ever will commit. Those sins are the nails which put your Lord, your God, and your friend to death. You are the Gacy's which tossed His precious body into the trap-door.

"Daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep for Me, but weep for yourselves and for your children."

The Holy Ghost will bring you back here on the Third Day. Your weeping will be over. You will receive the benefits of the cross and the Crucified One Himself. His victory cannot be seen tonight; only believed by His Word. Believe.