Day 16: Good Friday was Premeditated

“Fellow Israelites, listen to these words: This Jesus of Nazareth was a man attested to you by God with miracles, wonders, and signs that God did among you through him, just as you yourselves know. Though he was delivered up according to God’s determined plan and foreknowledge, you used lawless people to nail him to a cross and kill him. God raised him up, ending the pains of death, because it was not possible for him to be held by death.” Acts 2:22–24, emphasis mine

When I was in middle school, I went to a youth rally in Orlando where I heard an energetic and engaging youth pastor tell a story that haunted me for a long time. It went something like this:

Once upon a time there was a very kind man who lived in quaint log cabin in a remote area of the Great White North with his lovely wife and beloved son, who’d been born to them after over a decade of infertility. The man made an honest living operating a drawbridge that allowed twice daily commuter trains to pass safely over a large lake in the mountains where they lived.

The drawbridge operator’s little boy was both his namesake and the apple of his eye, so it delighted him when Junior accompanied him to work every Saturday. He often let him sit on his lap and push the button to lower the drawbridge and then wave cheerfully at the train passengers whizzing past the control booth on their way to the big city. But one Saturday Junior brought a bright red ball to entertain himself with and moments before the afternoon train rolled through, the ball rolled away from him down the hill and came to rest on the tracks below.

The train’s whistle drowned out the father’s bellowed warning not to chase after the ball, and his heart dropped as he saw the train racing around the bend at the exact moment his boy took off toward the ball. He had a split second to choose whether to leave the control booth and rescue his child, thereby condemning hundreds of commuters to their death by not lowering the drawbridge, or he could sit tight in the booth and do his job, thereby saving hundreds of strangers yet crushing his only son in the process.

He instinctively chose the latter. And then sat in stunned horror while hundreds of oblivious men, women, and children hurtled past with hands raised in happy greeting.

When the youth pastor got to the end of the story he added soberly, “And that’s exactly what God did for every single one of us. He crushed Jesus, His only begotten Son, to rescue you.” Of course, there was a huge altar call response that night as hundreds of kids—including myself—tearfully raced to the front of the arena, burdened with fresh guilt over the fact that because of our reprehensible behavior, God panicked and hit some dreadful button in heaven that condemned dear Jesus to death on a cross. Most of my girlfriends and I wept bitterly all the way home in an old fifteen-passenger church van, while the boys stared mournfully out the window at flickering interstate billboards because this was an era before hand-held high-tech devices, not long after all the dinosaurs died.

For years afterwards, I wondered and worried about that drawbridge operator and his wife. I thought about how hard Christmas morning must be with their son’s stocking missing from the mantel. How bleak his birthday must be now for them to endure without him every year. How that father must be in continual torment over whether or not he made the right choice. It wasn’t until decades later during a seminary class that I found out the train story was a complete fabrication. It never actually happened. It’s the spiritual edition of an urban legend and was conjured up by some creative, albeit manipulative, soul as an illustrative “tool” to help people recognize the magnitude of their sin.

I’m not saying illustrations or old wives’ tales or legends can’t be used in a sermon, because I’ve heard many pastors, preachers, and Bible teachers use them with responsible efficacy. But here’s the deal: there is no anguished operator in some ethereal drawbridge booth. The Creator of the Universe planned every detail of divine redemption. God chose the nails that would be driven into His boy’s wrists and feet and grew the trees that would sprout the thorns, which would eventually be woven into a mock crown and cruelly jammed onto His precious, only child’s head. Our Savior’s death was not a knee-jerk reaction; it was a carefully and divinely orchestrated mission of mercy.

And on top of that, let’s just be clear: Jesus didn’t accidentally stumble onto the cross trying to chase a ball. He chose to go there. It’s the whole reason He came to earth in the first place. He showed up to the tracks with the ropes, as it were, ready to tie Himself to them if He had to. He willingly laid His life down (John 10:17–28). Yes, the Father sent Him, but at the same time, Jesus also volunteered. The Father’s finger pointed for Him to go, as if to say, “you will be the one to do it,” at the very same moment His Son’s hand went up in the air to say, “I want to do it. Please let Me do it.” They were in perfect agreement. Though it would require such pain and agony, in the end, it was the Father’s joy to make a way for you and me to be saved, just as it was a joy for Christ to be that Way (Isa. 53:10; Heb. 12:2).

So, rest assured, friend. The cross wasn’t a sudden shock on the Father’s part, nor an accidental horror story (or a forced fate) on the Son’s. It was chosen in joy by them both. You can believe that today.

• How does it make you feel that Jesus joyfully endured the cross for YOU?
• What misconceptions about Jesus’ work on the cross have weighed you down in guilt?
• Did you know that the Father and Son agreed on the plan of the Gospel—if not, how does this help you process what happened on the cross?