Day 102

This weekend people around the world will celebrate, in perhaps the most muted way ever, the death and resurrection of Christ. What is disappointing to me, is that people will probably miss the richness of the sacrifice of the Godhead in sending the Messiah to take upon Himself the sorrows and sins of this world. Every terrible thing that has ever been done, and will be done, He carried it to the cross. From the first sin of disobedience which blossomed into death… Let me explain: Adam ate of the fruit from the hand of his wife. He completely understood that the wages of sin was death (Romans 6:23) because God had told him so (Genesis 2:17). And when God asked Adam essentially “What’s going on?” Adam basically said “the woman you gave me” (Genesis 3:12) deserves to die because she was the one who disobeyed first. And if you read it clearly, Adam also blamed God, and so in his accusation, Adam was implying that if I go down, then God You should go down too. What Adam did not understand at that moment, was that God had already decided to go down for us: the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world. Revelation 13:8. Let’s talk about this Lamb.

When Jesus came into this world, He laid aside His divine prerogatives to “walk a mile in your shoes.” One of the attributes which He stepped away from was His omniscient or His knowledge of everything. We know this because the Bible tells us: And Jesus kept increasing in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and men.” Luke 2:52. You can’t increase or grow in wisdom if you know everything. He made that choice to walk away from it all: Though he was God, he did not think of equality with God as something to cling to. Instead, he gave up his divine privileges; he took the humble position of a slave and was born as a human being. When he appeared in human form, he humbled himself in obedience to God and died a criminal’s death on a cross.” Philippians 2:6-8.

He would rather go through life, experiencing all the issues and problems, the joys and disappointments that come with the human experience, to take our place. Because we are the ones who deserved to die the criminal’s death. We broke the law, we broke the heart of God, yet He was the One who died to place us back together. Let’s be honest, when Adam sinned and basically said that his wife should die, and not him, their relationship probably never fully recovered from that moment. How could it? You can’t be married to someone, and you witness them telling someone that you deserve to die. That day not only was the Divine-Human connection severed, but the Human-Human connection was also severed as well. The only way to put it all back together, was for One Human to remain faithful to God and to man. That’s what Luke chapter 2 told us He did. And when Jesus was 12 years old, He was taken to Jerusalem during a family pilgrimage to attend the Passover Feast. During that experience, Jesus saw the lamb being killed for the sins of the people, which foreshadowed the Messiah. And at 12 years old, He realized, that He was that Lamb (Luke 2:41-50). But those who were with Him did not fully understand His mission, but He did.

Jesus studied the scriptures, we know that because He quoted them all the time during His ministry on earth. And when He said: “Don’t misunderstand why I have come. I did not come to abolish the law of Moses or the writings of the prophets. No, I came to accomplish their purpose.” Matthew 5:17. He knew about this scripture: But [in fact] He has borne our griefs, And He has carried our sorrows and pains; Yet we [ignorantly] assumed that He was stricken, Struck down by God and degraded and humiliated [by Him]. But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was crushed for our wickedness [our sin, our injustice, our wrongdoing]; The punishment [required] for our well-being fell on Him, And by His stripes (wounds) we are healed.” Isaiah 53:4-5.

Jesus knew that He was the “He” spoke of, and He did not shy away from His mission. He said I came to fulfill them to accomplish their purpose. Let that sink in… He knew that He would be maligned and forsaken by all (Isaiah 53:6), He knew that He would be betrayed by a close friend (Psalm 41:9), He knew they would strip Him and He’d be naked (Psalm 22:17) He knew that even though He was innocent, that He would have to die (Isaiah 53:7), He knew no one would understand Him. But He did it anyway. He died for every sin that would ever be committed. You name it, He took it upon Himself so we would not have to carry that burden upon ourselves, because we could never make it right. But He could, and He did. So now we keep pressing forward: We do this by keeping our eyes on Jesus, the champion who initiates and perfects our faith. Because of the joy awaiting him, he endured the cross, disregarding its shame. Now he is seated in the place of honor beside God’s throne.” Hebrews 12:2.

We were the reason why He went through with it, we were the joy He saw. To reconcile us with the family of God, so we could be one with Him, in love, action and in purpose. We celebrate the resurrection, yes But without His sacrifice of love upon that cross so long ago, there would be no reason to celebrate. For He is: Jesus Christ, the faithful and trustworthy Witness, the Firstborn of the dead, and the Ruler of the kings of the earth. To Him who [always] loves us and who [has once for all] freed us [or washed us] from our sins by His own blood (His sacrificial death)— and formed us into a kingdom…priests to His God and Father—to Him be the glory and the power and the majesty and the dominion forever and ever. Amen.” Revelation 1:5,6.

And, amen.