The Journey to the Cross

THE JOURNEY TO THE CROSS 

A Reflection for Good Friday

By Pastor Brian Wilbur

Date: April 3, 2026

Series: Good Friday

Note: Unless otherwise noted, Scripture quotations are from The ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Introduction

In the well-known spiritual we sing: “Were you there when they crucified my Lord? Were you there when they nailed him to the tree? Were you there when they laid Him in the tomb?”

We have gathered together on this Good Friday to remember and celebrate the greatest act of sacrificial love that the world has ever known. This greatest act of sacrificial love was undertaken by the God-Man, Jesus the Messiah, the divine Son who became a human son. This love of Christ was aimed at our redemption, that through His death we would be forgiven and set right and reconciled to God and transformed by His grace.

In order to assist our meditation upon His faithfulness and sacrifice, we will ponder the many moments through which He journeyed from the Mount of Olives to the cross and then into the tomb.

(1) Jesus surrenders to the Father’s will (Luke 22:39-46)

We begin with Jesus and His disciples going to the Mount of Olives, to Gethsemane. Jesus is only hours away from being ushered into the agony and forsakenness of the cross, and the weight of that reality begins to bear down on His soul. His soul is troubled. Jesus had lived His entire life in loving communion with the Father, and so now as the darkness draws near to Him, He draws near to the Father in prayer: “Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me. Nevertheless, not my will, but yours, be done.” (Luke 22:42) Jesus hadn’t come down from heaven in order to do His own will, but to do the will of His Father. The Lord of glory had become a lowly servant who lived in obedience to the Father’s will, even to the point of death. He surrenders to the divine will for the salvation of His people. In response to Jesus’ prayer, the Father sends an angel from heaven in order to strengthen Him (Luke 22:43). He is ready to face the power of darkness.

(2) Jesus is betrayed and arrested (Luke 22:47-53)

Still on the Mount of Olives, the traitor Judas leads a crowd of chief priests and temple officers to Jesus so that they can arrest Him. Judas turns a symbol of friendship into an act of treachery, and He betrays the Son of Man with a kiss. The sons of Jacob betrayed their brother Joseph for twenty pieces of silver. Judas betrays the Messiah for thirty pieces of silver. The Word of the Lord is more valuable than thousands of gold and silver coins, but Judas and those around Him chose the course of lesser value: they are entrapped in the darkness. And so with swords and clubs the religious establishment arrests Jesus and leads him into the house of the high priest. The Son of God is placed in the custody of human hands.

(3) Peter denies Jesus (Luke 22:54-62)

Until His final breath, Jesus remains sober-minded and level-headed. But Peter loses his nerve and fails to have courage under fire. Just moments earlier Peter had professed, “Lord, I am ready to go with you both to prison and to death.” (Luke 22:33) But Peter isn’t as strong as he thinks he is. Even before the flat-out denials, Peter’s steps were faltering. Back at the Mount of Olives, Jesus had told him, “Pray that you may not enter into temptation.” (Luke 22:40) But instead of praying, Peter and the other disciples fell asleep. And it’s not just that he was physically asleep. Jesus said again, “Rise and pray that you may not enter into temptation.” (Luke 22:46) And then, when the band of religiously respectable thugs came to arrest Jesus, it was Peter who had taken his sword and cut off the right ear of the servant of the high priest (Luke 22:50, John 18:10). Peter ought to have been resting in the divine will, not resorting to human weapons. And so, from over-confidence in himself to prayerlessness to confidence in the sword, Peter was in the process of falling apart. Been there?

Now he follows Jesus at a distance and has to process the fact that his Lord is under arrest, the religious powers are against Jesus, and what Jesus had built over the past few years seems to be unraveling. Is he willing to identify with Jesus in this hour of apparent defeat? Three times, other people call attention to the fact that Peter is one of Jesus’s followers. Three times, Peter denies it: “I do not know him” (Luke 22:57); “I am not [one of them]” (Luke 22:58); “I do not know what you are talking about” (Luke 22:60). All lies! Immediately the rooster crows, and Jesus turns to look at Peter and they make eye contact, and Peter’s heart is cut and he goes out and weeps bitterly.

(4) Jesus is mocked by the guards (Luke 22:63-65)

Meanwhile, Jesus begins to be dehumanized by those around him. The guards mock him, beat him, blindfold him, and blaspheme him. The light of the world is rejected by men who prefer to remain in the dark.

(5) Jesus is condemned by the religious leaders (Luke 22:66-71)

The morning after the arrest, Jesus is summoned before the council of elders, chief priests, and scribes. The religious establishment convenes, not in order to earnestly seek after the truth, not in order to seek after the Father’s will through humble prayer, but in order to condemn this Man that they hate. A human court dares to sit in judgment upon the Messiah, the Anointed One. Jesus tells them the truth: “[From] now on the Son of Man shall be seated at the right hand of the power of God.” (Luke 22:69) But instead of paying honor to the Son who is destined to rule at the Father’s right hand, they are blind and they judge Him a blasphemer and fraud who is worthy of death. They are resolved to eliminate Him as soon as possible – but to do this, they need authorization from the Roman government.

(6) Jesus is handed over by Pontius Pilate (Luke 23:1-25)

And so, the religious establishment goes to the political establishment in order to get a death warrant. The elders, chief priests, and scribes arise and bring Jesus before the Roman governor, Pontius Pilate (Luke 23:1). They know that Pilate wouldn’t care about theological squabbling among Jews, so they present Jesus as a grave threat to the Roman empire. They call Jesus a disturber of the peace, a traitor who causes social unrest and who teaches people to withhold tribute from Caesar. Even so, Pilate is able to discern that Jesus is innocent of these charges. He answers: “I find no guilt in this man.” (Luke 23:4) He answers a second time: “You brought me this man as one who was misleading the people. And after examining him before you, behold, I did not find this man guilty of any of your charges against him.” (Luke 23:14) He answers a third time: “I have found in him no guilt deserving death.” (Luke 23:22) The entire scene is full of tragic irony. The Jewish leaders were handling the Lamb of God, and upon inspection they ought to have seen that He is the pure, spotless, and unblemished Lamb. But they were not willing to see it. Meanwhile, the Gentile governor Pilate, who was certainly not a holy man, was closer to the truth than they were, and could see that Jesus is innocent of the charges against him.

However, Pilate fails to have the courage of his convictions. Not unlike Peter, right? Pressure bears down on Pilate from the Jews who are demanding a death warrant for Jesus. They cry out, “Away with this man” (Luke 23:18). They keep shouting, “Crucify, crucify him!” (Luke 23:21) After Pilate protests, they prove to be “urgent, demanding with loud cries that he should be crucified” (Luke 23:23). And then in one of the most sobering statements in all of Scripture, we are told: “And their voices prevailed.” (Luke 23:23) Courage didn’t prevail. Moral sanity didn’t prevail. Justice didn’t prevail. The voices of the ungodly prevail. Pilate buckles under the pressure and “[decides] that their demand should be granted” and “[delivers] Jesus over to their will” (Luke 23:24, 25).

And what an awful will it is – this will of theirs, this will of ours, this will of all sinful human beings – that insists on putting the Holy One to death. Jesus Christ, the true light, “was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world did not know him. He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him.” (John 1:10-11)

(7) Jesus bears the indignity of a mock coronation (Matthew 27:27-31)

And so it is that Jesus suffers grave injustice under Pontius Pilate, who now delivers Jesus over to be crucified. Thus condemned, Jesus continues to be dehumanized, this time by the Roman soldiers. They stage a mock coronation: they strip Him, dress Him in a scarlet robe, put a crown of thorns on his head, put a reed in His right hand, kneel before Him, and mockingly declare, “Hail, King of the Jews!” (Matthew 27:29) They spit upon Him and strike Him in the head with the reed. But God isn’t laughing: Jesus is indeed the true King, not willing to lord it over others, but willing to descend into the lowest place of degradation, in order to lift sinners out of their bondage to sin and death. There is no other king like Jesus.

(8) Jesus bears His own cross (John 19:16b-17)

After Pilate consigns Jesus to death by crucifixion, Jesus is led away to Golgotha – The Place of the Skull. As Jesus begins the journey from Pilate’s headquarters to Golgotha, we are told that “he [goes] out, bearing his own cross” (John 19:17). The horizontal cross beam, which would eventually be attached to the vertical cross beam at the site of execution, is placed upon Jesus. Think of the shame of having been judged a criminal worthy of death and then having to publicly carry this instrument of shame, torture, and death through the streets of Jerusalem. This is part of ‘the cup of suffering’ that Jesus had resolved to drink. He is yielded to the Father’s will. Jesus endures the cross as He entrusts Himself to His faithful and righteous Father. Jesus has the confidence expressed in the psalms: “I believe that I shall look upon the goodness of the LORD in the land of the living!” (Psalm 27:13) The cross is the pathway to glory.

(9) Simon of Cyrene carries Jesus’ cross (Luke 23:26)

At some point along the way to Golgotha, a new character enters the plot: Simon of Cyrene. He is making his way from the countryside, and he is seized and pressed into service. This forced service may have been disagreeable to him, but he is given a most memorable and tremendous privilege: he must carry the cross of Jesus the rest of the way. We aren’t told why. Perhaps Jesus is too weakened from He had already endured to continue carrying it Himself, but Scripture doesn’t say. What Scripture does say is that Simon of Cyrene now walks behind Jesus as he carries the cross of Jesus. The picture becomes instructive: “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.” (Mark 8:34) Being a follower of Jesus means following the way of the cross. Being a follower of Jesus means saying the same thing that the apostle Paul said: “But far be it from me to boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world. For neither circumcision counts for anything, nor uncircumcision, but a new creation.” (Galatians 6:14-15) For those who have eyes to see, the cross of Jesus brings us into an entirely new world, an entirely new way of being and living, “a new creation”.

(10) Jesus meets the women of Jerusalem (Luke 23:27-31)

As Jesus continues his journey to Golgotha, He meets a group of women “who are mourning and lamenting for him.” (Luke 23:27) While it is understandable that these women might have been sorrowful on His account, nevertheless we don’t know the deep-down reasons for their sorrow, and it is probable that they are sorrowing for shallow and misguided reasons. Jesus, true to His always faithful resolve to speak forth the Father’s words, doesn’t get caught up in the sentimentality of their sorrow, but instead issues a sobering word of caution to them: “Daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep for me, but weep for yourselves and for your children. For behold, the days are coming when they will say, ‘Blessed are the barren and the wombs that never bore and the breasts that never nursed!’ Then they will begin to say to the mountains, ‘Fall on us,’ and to the hills, ‘Cover us.’” (Luke 23:28-30) In reality, Jesus is inviting these women to join Him in His own lament for the people of Jerusalem, for just days earlier Jesus had wept over the city of Jerusalem because the people were ignorant of the peace that had been made available to them through Jesus, and as a result the people in this city would face great suffering in forty years when the Roman army would be unleashed against them (Luke 19:41-44). Only those who follow Jesus will escape the coming judgment.

(11) Jesus is crucified (Luke 23:32-38)

After this brief word to the daughters of Jerusalem, Jesus continues on his journey and finally arrives at Golgotha. As it happens, “[two] others, who were criminals, [had also been] led away to be put to death with him.” (Luke 23:32) They now “[come] to the place that is called The Skull, [and] there they [crucify] him, and the criminals, one on right and one on his left.” (Luke 23:33) Jesus is fastened to the wooden beams and spikes are driven through his wrists. Then He is lifted up on the cross for all to see. It is 9:00am. His flesh pulls against the cross. Breathing is laborious. His body has no rest. He is exposed to public shame and ridicule. He appears to be accursed and abandoned.

The religious leaders scoff at Him. The soldiers mock Him. They did not understand that they were ridiculing and mocking the Lord of glory. And the Lord of grace. Jesus continues to demonstrate love from the cross: “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” (Luke 23:34)

An inscription over the cross identifies the crime of the one being crucified. The inscription over the cross of Jesus reads, “This is the King of the Jews.” (Luke 23:38) The Jewish religious leaders who sought Jesus’ death would have preferred it to say, ‘This man claims to be the King of the Jews.’ Pilate had decided upon the wording, quite possibly as an insult to the Jews. But the irony, of course, is that Jesus really is the King of the Jews, the heir to the throne of David, and beyond that He really is the King of all kings and the Lord of all lords. But He is no ordinary king. Jesus is the King who lays down His life for His rebellious subjects. He becomes accursed for their sake. He bears our sins in His body on the tree, so that we can be healed of all of our maladies and be reinstated into the blessedness of fellowship with God (1 Peter 2:24-25).

(12) Jesus promises eternal life to the repentant thief (Luke 23:39-43)

And this leads to Exhibit A: a repentant thief becomes the first beneficiary of the King’s sacrifice. As we have been exploring this journey to the cross, it is painfully obvious that men aren’t the heroes. The disciples fall asleep. Judas betrays Jesus. Peter denies Jesus. The religious leaders condemn Jesus. Pilate buckles under pressure. The agents of the religious leaders mock Jesus. Herod’s soldiers mock Jesus. Pilate’s soldiers mock Jesus. The religious leaders themselves ridicule Jesus. Jesus alone is the hero of the story, the King who bears the incalculable price of redeeming His people. And yet, couched into the narrative are two men who get into right relation to Jesus. The first man we already met: Simon of Cyrene who (admittedly by accident) becomes a man taking up the cross and following Jesus.

Now we meet the second man: while so many others are mocking and reviling Jesus, spiritual sanity descends upon one of the criminals who is being crucified with Jesus. This thief begins to fear God, he begins to realize that he is guilty but Jesus is innocent, he begins to understand that Jesus is the King of a kingdom that human hands can’t touch, and he believes that Jesus is able to bring him into that kingdom on the other side of death. And so he does what each and every one of us must do, if we are to be saved from sin and death: he entrusts himself to Jesus, saying, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.” (Luke 23:42). Right then and there, the King of glory promises salvation to this humble believer: “Truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in paradise.” (Luke 23:43)

(13) Jesus entrusts Himself to the Father and dies (Luke 23:44-49)

Having already hung on the cross for three hours, at Noon Jesus enters into the thick darkness, which envelops the whole land until 3:00pm. “[The] sun’s light [fails].” (Luke 23:45) This descent of darkness is God’s handiwork, showing us that Jesus is enduring the desolation of judgment on account of the world’s sin. Behold, the Light of the world, now hidden in impenetrable darkness. “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!” (John 1:29)

At around 3:00pm Jesus cries out with a loud voice, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Matthew 27:46) In God’s mysterious plan, Jesus had to drink the cup of affliction and darkness, of forsakenness and death, in order to provide the cup of salvation for the stumbling Peters, for the repentant thieves, for the Simons (like Simon of Cyrene) who take up the cross and follow Jesus, for the Josephs (like Joseph of Arimathea) who are “looking for the kingdom of God” (Luke 23:51).

Moments later, Jesus entrusts Himself to the Father whom He loves: “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit!” (Luke 23:46) Jesus dies in the same manner in which He had lived His entire life, in loving dependence upon His heavenly Father. After entrusting Himself to the Father’s care, Jesus “[breathes] his last” (Luke 23:46). Jesus, the God-Man, is dead. The Messiah is cut off. It is one of the most mysterious and holy moments in all of world history. Indeed it is the fulcrum of world history. When the Maker dies, the temple becomes unglued, the earth becomes unglued, and people become unglued. It cannot be otherwise:

“And behold, the curtain of the temple [is] torn in two, from top to bottom. And the earth shook, and the rocks were split.” (Matthew 27:51)

“And all the crowds that had assembled for this spectacle, when they saw what had taken place, returned home beating their breasts.” (Luke 23:48)

Through this great ungluing, through this cross, through this death of the Son of Man, salvation comes to a broken world.

(14) Jesus is buried (Luke 23:50-56)

After his death, a good man by the name of Joseph of Arimathea takes care of the body of Jesus. He takes it down from the cross, “[wraps] it in a linen shroud and [lays] him in a tomb cut in stone, where no one had ever yet been laid.” (Luke 23:53)

Now the sun is setting on Good Friday, and “the Sabbath [is] beginning.” (Luke 23:54) Luke concludes his account of Jesus’s death and burial by saying, “On the Sabbath they rested according to the commandment.” (Luke 23:56) The Sabbath. The day of rest. The last day of rest for the old creation. The body of our Lord is at rest.

“Were you there when they crucified my Lord? Were you there when they nailed Him to the tree? Were you there when they laid Him in the tomb?”