While I was on a long and quite different Good Friday yesterday (more to this on a later post), I suddenly wondered (for the nth time in the my entire life): how did the people who knew Jesus back then felt during this very day?

I try to put myself in the crowds. If I were present in that time, where would I be? Would I be one of Jesus’ followers? Or would I be one of the people shouting for His crucifixion? Would I even care at all?

If I were one of Jesus’ followers, and He asked me to come with Him to Gethsemane, would I stay awake for Him while He prayed? (I’m afraid I kind of know what the answer to this question is. :( )

If I followed Him when He was taken, and I was asked the same questions that Peter was asked, how would I have answered? Would I tell them the truth even if it meant I could die too, or would I answer like Peter, even after swearing my loyalty to Jesus?

If I didn’t follow Him there, would I have followed Him the way John did as Jesus walked to Calvary? Would I have stood at the foot of the cross, heart breaking at the sight of my friend who is being punished unjustly before my eyes? Would I have stood beside Mary as she cried for her only Son?

Or would I have hid in the upper room, scared to be found and connected with Him, confused on why all these is happening?

If I were one of the people in the crowds and the guards asked me to help Jesus to carry His cross just as how Simon was asked, would I have said yes, too? Or would I pretend it wasn’t me they were calling and hide instead? Would I have said an excuse just so I wouldn’t have to accept the responsibility?

If I were one of His followers back then, one of the women who helped bury Jesus in the tomb, how would I have felt after doing so? Would there be a sense of hopelessness, the feeling of “What now?” after? What would happen now? I believed in Him, but He’s in the tomb, and it is over. How do I go back to the way it was before?

Why did He have to die?

Or…would I be a Judas Iscariot, selling Him out and then being so wracked with guilt afterwards that I couldn’t ask for forgiveness? Would I be so blind and crazed that I would decide to just end it all myself by tying a rope around my neck and hanging on a tree?

Or would I even really care about all that happened at all?