One Friday the unthinkable happened. The Son of God died. Not peacefully, in old age  surrounded by family and friends,  but  violently, at age 33, betrayed, abandoned, and denied by His friends, surrounded by enemies like bulls, like ravening, roaring lions. The Word became flesh, but the leather scourge  weighted with lead balls  and embedded with pieces of bone, severed the flesh  from the Word. So the King once clothed in  Majesty now hangs on a cross  naked, exposing His bones  to the gaping,  jeering  crowd, gambling on His robe. The KING once crowned with Heaven’s praises, Is now crowned with  mocking thorns. The Son’s Father  is Not  by His side, But is too righteous, too pure, too holy,  to look upon evil, to look upon His Son  Who became a curse  for sinners, such as me. So the Son drinks  the FULL cup of His WRATH  Alone, prompting the Son to  scream, My God, My God, Why have You forsaken Me?! As He drinks God’s eternal justice  condensed into one six-hour cup— the cup that I deserved,  that should have been MY portion for ALL ETERNITY. The sky watched as God’s Son bore my sin, and  from noon to three  when the sun shines brightest, the sun hid its face,  and the sky clothed itself in black, in sackcloth and ashes, mourning the death of its Maker, that occurred at  the Ninth Hour  when the psalmist’s words rang out, from the lips  that refused the sour wine with gall: “Into Your hands, I commit My Spirit!” The atonement  is completed, once and for all. It  is  finished.