Good Friday Talk
This is a talk about Good Friday given to children aged 10 - 12.
The story I am going to tell you happened about 2000 years ago in a country called Judea. I want you to imagine that you are one of the people who live in Judea at that time. You have lived in Judea all your life, your parents have lived there all their lives and so did your grandparents and all of your ancestors. Your people have lived there for centuries; it is your home. But although it is your home, you don’t run the country. You were invaded a long time ago by my people; the Romans. Now the Romans run a lot of countries, not just yours. We come from far away, we look different, we speak a different language and we worship different Gods. Your God is the God of Adam and Eve and Noah and Moses; you are Jews. We are definitely not.
Now us Romans don’t take any nonsense from the countries that we run. We are in charge and you do what we say. And if you don’t do what we say then our soldiers squash you. We have the most soldiers, the best trained soldiers, with the best weapons of any army in the world. Your people are poor. There are no hospitals in case you get sick, many of you children, especially the girls, don’t go to school, or perhaps only on Sunday. The Romans have all the best land, all the best jobs, live in the nicest houses. We are the best and you lot are just here to do our work. Us Romans have been in charge for so long, no one here, not even the very oldest people, can remember a time when we weren’t in charge.
The story I am going to tell you is about a man who came from a country called Galilee. Galilee is a country way up to the north of Judea. It is a pretty boring country, only one interesting thing in it, a huge lake. They go fishing in boats on the lake. More of a sea than a lake, really. Now this man from Galilee, he’s called Jesus. He is a Jew just like you and worships the same God that you do, the same God that we do today, 2000 years later. But at the time of this story he is 30 years old. And he is very well-known. For three years he has been travelling all round Galilee and Judea teaching the Jews (that’s you) more about your God. He knows the Jewish bible very well. He also knows people, can see what they need, knows all about them before they even first speak to him. But he doesn’t just teach, he heals as well. Miraculous healings. He has cured people who couldn’t walk. He has made a blind man see again. He has even brought people back to life who were dead! And this isn’t a story, all this has been done in front of big crowds. Everywhere he goes large crowds gather to hear him speak and to be healed by him.
You need to know that the bible talks about someone who will come to the Jews to save them, presumably to save them from the Romans. And all of the signs point to this Jesus being the saviour, a Messiah, the Christ; God who has come to earth in human form to save his people, the Jews, the faithful people who pray to God and worship him. So you are all very excited about Jesus. You really feel that this man is going to help you in a spectacular way. And number one on your wish list is to get rid of the Romans.
This story takes place in Jerusalem, which is the biggest city in Judea, at the time of a festival called Passover. All you Jews celebrate Passover for several days every year and the best place to be for Passover, for miles and miles around, is Jerusalem. So there are thousands of people coming to Jerusalem when suddenly Jesus arrives. And the last piece of the jigsaw falls into place. Jesus rides into Jerusalem on a donkey, just as the bible says the Messiah will. The crowd go wild, waving palm leaves and cheering - you are really excited that finally the saviour has come to help you and to get rid of the Romans. Over the next few days Jesus teaches in the biggest and most important temples in Jerusalem.
But something isn’t quite right. Your priests, holy men, who lead the church services, and help you to have a relationship with God, don’t think that Jesus is the Messiah. They try to trick him into saying something stupid or something that proves he is not God after all. He never does say anything wrong, but you can’t help feeling a little doubt about him. A few days go by much the same; Jesus is showing no sign of destroying the Romans at all. And all of the priests, men you have looked up to since you could first walk, are united in their distrust and hatred of Jesus. Your doubts are growing.
Then one morning you wake up and news is passing around the city that Jesus has disappeared. No one can find him. But you eventually find out that he has been arrested and is in prison. Now, say what you like about us Romans, but one thing is for sure, we have laws and we stick by them. If you’ve done something wrong you get a good kicking, but if you haven’t you haven’t got anything to worry about. So you wonder why Jesus has been arrested. Jesus is brought to Pilate. Pilate is the top Roman in the city, my boss. The main man. He asks Jesus lots of questions, but finds out he hasn’t done anything wrong. So he sends him to Herod. Herod is one of your lot; we let him sit in a palace and call himself king, but he works for us. Herod has been keen to see Jesus, but doesn’t find out much more than Pilate and sends him back again. Neither of them can find anything that Jesus has done wrong, anything that will justify him being in prison. Now Pilate is a smart man. A nasty, brutal, vicious man, but a clever man. So he thinks up a good way to solve the problem. He decides to offer the crowd a choice. There is another prisoner called Barabbas. Every year at the Passover festival he releases one prisoner. He asks the crowd whether he should release Barabbas or Jesus. Now this confuses you. Jesus is a great man and you have loved him, but the priests seem so certain he is not the Messiah and he hasn’t brought down fire on the Romans or performed any miracles since his so-called triumphant entry into Jerusalem. Barabbas on the other hand is a local man, from Jerusalem. You know him, and his wife, and have played with his children in the street. In fact his wife is there with you wailing and crying and pleading to have him set free. He isn’t in prison for a great crime, just for doing something silly, like knocking the helmet off a policeman, or something like that. You can’t let the Romans kill Barabbas, it wouldn’t be right. Your priests are there, too, telling you to shout for Barabbas to be freed. Eventually the whole crowd is shouting for Barabbas to be released. “Let Barabbas go free!”.
Pilate holds up his hand and asks the crowd “What shall I do, then, with the one you call the king of the Jews?” He means Jesus. You are all silent. No one knows how to answer him. [pause] Then one man towards the back of the crowd calls out “Crucify him”. This stuns you! Crucifixion is the most unpleasant way to die there has ever been. It is a Roman punishment. It is horrible. Vile. Disgusting. Surely Jesus hasn’t deserved this? But all around you people are beginning to call out “Crucify him”. You remember the hope you had that he would save you, but here he is in chains and if he truly was the Son of God he wouldn’t have to endure this, he could click his fingers and free himself. He can’t be God after all; he has tricked you and let you down. All those years you followed him and believed in him and he has been a trickster all along. You find yourself shouting with the rest of them “Crucify him! Crucify him!” Pilate has no choice but to agree; the crowd is too big for even the Roman soldiers to safely control by force. So Jesus is lead away to be crucified.
Crucifixion is a horrible way to kill someone. You nail the victim to a wooden cross and then stand the cross upright. Like in this picture. This is not easy to do. First of all, you have to hammer the nails in in the right place. There is no good doing it in the middle of the palm like the traditional pictures have. When the cross was put upright the weight of the body would tear the flesh off the nail and the person would fall off. Instead the nail needs to be put in to the wrist bones where the muscles and sinews will hold it fast. Don’t let anyone tell you that being crucified is easy. Crucifixion is a very painful way to die, but Jesus hangs on that cross for several hours, in agony. But finally he calls out to God and dies and at that exact moment the temple curtain is mysteriously shredded and the earth shakes and rocks split open. Everyone who is there watching is stunned. Was this the Christ, the Messiah, the Son of God after all? What have you done? You have rejected the living God and called for him to be killed. It is your fault. You have killed him. How will you ever get into heaven now? How can you possibly make this up to God? You have killed his only son, Jesus Christ! You are in shock, panicked. But the truth is there can be no doubt that Jesus is now gone. All of the hope that you had placed in him dies too. All your hopes of being saved from the Romans and of being released from your miserable, difficult lives are gone. You are all alone, surely even God, the father in heaven, must now have turned his face from you in disgust.
Martin Ryan - Liphook
