Author: 28th Australasian Youth Conference
Pages: 425, paperback
Twenty-four hours is not a long time. In this time, our Lord went from being a free man with the company of all his closest friends, to a crucified criminal, denied and forsaken by all.
“The Day Christ Died” is a consideration of the life of one man, on one day, on the very day that he knew he would die.
It was the last day that our Lord spent as a mortal being. He began it in a secluded session with his closest friends where he instituted the Last Supper. He then departed for a few hours of heartfelt meditation and prayer on the stony slopes of Olivet. Here amongst the olive groves, he steadied himself for the ordeal that he alone knew lay ahead. The betrayal by his familiar friend. The denial by another. The awful feeling of loneliness. Then the trials. The injustice and hypocrisy, the torture and abuse, the hatred and spite. The pain of the crown of thorns, the torture of carrying the cross, and the agony of death are almost incomprehensible in their brutality.
But amazingly through all this, his mind was clear, his character consistent.
This is a study of the mind of the greatest man to ever grace Israel’s soil. We see him in some of his darkest moments, under the most intense pressure that any human being has ever been subjected to, and yet despite all this we see him ultimately in his greatest triumph.
Any contemplation of these last few precious hours of the life of our Lord will inevitably fall short in expressing the drama and the pathos of the day. This is left for each reverent reader to fill in during their lonely hours of meditation as we all count the cost of this supreme sacrifice.
These Notes, although verse-by-verse, have been written, we hope, in an easily readable style, so that this volume may be of use not merely as an expositional tool, but also as a devotional one as well.
