I’m not sure what Easter means to you but it quite often takes on this meaning -

Easter: Chocolate. Eggs. Presents. Hot cross buns. Long weekend. 

As we dig deeper into the meaning of Easter we find a lot more than empty calories and rotting teeth. The truth is it feels like each year we need to dig deeper and deeper and peel back the layers to get to the truth.

We find Jesus in a place of despair. He’s just finished a meal with his closest friends and now he is alone in a forest where the shadows of the trees are as dark as his sorrow. Emptiness is overtaking his soul and the torment of betrayal, abandonment and pain is weeping from his body.

Later that night Jesus is arrested. One of his mates had handed him over to the authorities. Jesus had irritated and denounced the religious elite and they wanted pay back.

They accused him of claiming to be the son of God, the long awaited messiah, the saviour of the world. You may think who cares about that? That’s no crime, maybe he’s just crazy!

But back in the day a claim like this was very dangerous. It was a strict ‘no no’ in the Jewish religion, punishable by death and to claim this was to suggest that Caesar (the head of the Roman Empire) had no power or control over you.(*more info below) To rebel against the Roman government was dealt with in one way.

Death by crucifixion.   

The truth is the religious elite were trying to find something and anything that would give them the right to kill Jesus. Nothing was sticking until Jesus confirmed their final accusation.

That night Jesus spent the night tied up and confined in prison.

Alone. Waiting for the inevitable.

Have you ever been betrayed?

By people you thought were close to you.

Abandoned?

By the very people who were supposed to be there for you.

To go back and get a feel for Jesus’s life click here.

But for the next day in this story click here.

(*The Roman Empire ruled Israel. The leader of Rome was a guy called Caesar. The Jewish people of Israel were in a strange position, they were ruled, dominated and oppressed by the Roman government but the Romans gave the Jews power to handle religious and civil disputes and this came under Jewish law. So first and foremost they came under Roman rule but the next layer was Jewish law, so for Jewish people they were living under two types of law.)