The Triumphal Entry was a celebration for those that loved Him; that His life, His message, His miracles and His teaching must be impacting the crowds like it did them. Jesus is getting the glory He deserves. The crowds must understand what we have come to know, that Jesus of Nazareth is the Messiah of God. They are beginning to love the Jesus that we love and to see how He loves us! What joy! Hear the shouts and praises! That was Palm Sunday.

And then it just absolutely unravels. Can you imagine watching Palm Sunday as one of the men and women who love and follow Jesus, and then watching, absolutely stunned and terrified, as one thing after another unravels; a mock trial, a miscarriage of justice, not just accusing Jesus but beating and flogging Him nearly to death. Jesus, once triumphant, now bloodied and seemingly defeated. And they all find themselves at the foot of a cross, watching Jesus die and hearing His cries of agony to His Father. The text records that those who loved Jesus had no words; they get no speaking parts. The only voices initially are from those who hate Him. Pride always seems to have the words while grief remains speechless. And eventually Jesus breaths his last and cries out, “It is finished.” The road I came to make for you back to God is complete; My blood will now cover you and make you clean. This little movement of disciples that Jesus had started just stands there and watches their hope literally die in front of them. So what do they do now? What should they do next? What really is there to do when the Lord of life is dead? And that is the text we focus on this morning. As we read it, try to catch what it is that the women do after they have watched Jesus die.

It is hard to go back and imagine the pain that Jesus suffered on the cross. Good Friday is good because the pain that Jesus bore meant our joy and our freedom from sin and death. The cross brought a redemptive element to suffering that was not there before. But it is easy to forget the real pain of the cross for Jesus. Much has been said about the physical pain that Jesus endured for us. The Roman cross was reserved for only the worst of criminals, among whom Jesus should never have been included. Jesus started His ministry standing in a long line of sinners waiting to be baptized, and He ended His earthly ministry in a line of crosses, between two of the worst criminals executed that day. The cross was designed to be the slowest death possible; it was designed to combine all the ways our body could die. Suffocation, blood loss, dehydration, shock; it combined all of our physical pains into one. And it had one purpose: to punish a criminal to the maximum amount of pain that his body could handle before dying and to make sure he paid well for his crimes against the supreme authority of the Roman Empire. It was a physical pain that few could imagine. But Scripture points to another pain of the cross that we can easily overlook amid the gruesome physical torture that Jesus went through. That is the mental and emotional anguish of soul that each one of our sins drives into the heart of our Father that now were laid on Jesus at the cross.