4 Days until Easter

4 Days until Easter

Today I’ll hike the path.  I’ll push my way through the crowds.  Catching glimpses of Him along the way. I’ll pass Mary as she buries herself into John’s embrace.  All the way up to Calvary’s hill.  A parade in route to the gravest execution in history, the procession to Golgotha was led by a centurion and complete Roman military guard.  One of the soldiers carried a sign that read, “Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews”.  It was written in Hebrew, Latin and Greek.  There was no denying Who this Man was.  In the custom of Roman crucifixions, soldiers carried signs that displayed the criminal’s name and crime, and then at the time of the crucifixion, the sign was attached atop the cross.  His name is Jesus and His accused crime was being King of the Jews.

This journey to Golgotha was such a contrast to the journey He had taken at the beginning of that very week as He came down from the Mount of Olives and into Jerusalem.  At the beginning of the week, the crowds threw their cloaks and palm branches on the ground as Christ rode in on a Donkey in homage to Him.  They had heard of His healing power and His leadership among the people. There was a hope that He would save them from the political rule of the Romans to restore Israel's independence.  However, He came to save them from something much greater. Waving their palm branches, a symbol of goodness and victory, they surrounded Him, welcoming His reign.

But their desires were different from God’s, so there they were at the end of the week, cheering on His execution.  It is just so hard to bear how awful we can be when we don’t get what we want.  We embrace and clothe ourselves in sin as if it’s nothing.  Pride.  Self-centeredness.  And that would be the exact reason Christ gave Himself up in that moment to be nailed to a cross.  He loves us more than we can understand with our finite human limitations of comprehension.  Our sin, just like the sin of those in the crowd, had to be paid for and when He rode in on Palm Sunday, He knew that He was riding in for His last Passover on earth to pay for our sins.  And here He was walking His last few steps on earth.

He had walked this earth for 33 years pouring out goodness and hope and forgiveness and mercy and love.  And now the time had come.  He was silent.  He was calm.  He was passive.  He was intentional.  There was no resisting.  There was no arguing.  There was no defending.  There were no words of resentment.  He laid down His body and stretched out His arms.  And when offered a drink of drugged wine to deaden some of the pain, He pressed His lips shut and quietly, peacefully refused mercy and accepted suffering.  He was not there to accept a cup of pain reliever.  He was there to drink the cup of crucifixion with all of His senses, with all of His love, with all of His Grace.  He wanted no escape from any portion of what He was doing as a willing act for the redemption of humanity.  He saw our sin and He knew what He had to do.   And He let them drive the nails through His hands.

“He was oppressed, and He was afflicted, yet He opened not His mouth; like a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent so he opened not His mouth.”  -Isaiah 53:7

It breaks my heart to think that there are people who can look at a picture of Jesus on the cross and think nothing of it.  There are those who can hear the story of Jesus going to the cross, but feel nothing.  Like the guards who just saw Him as a regular Jewish Man from Nazareth at His death, they are unmoved.  It’s because they haven’t walked to the hill of Calvary to listen carefully.  Because if they did, they’d hear Him tenderly say their name and list out every thought, every action, and every notion of wrongdoing.  Every single sin.  Every one of them.  And then they’d see Him look up at the guard and say, “Ok, I’ve taken their sin, now nail it to my cross”.  And while holding their very own sins, they’d see their Savior’s hand being securely fastened to a beam with a driven spike.  You can’t walk to Calvary’s hill without falling face first in remorse. 

“He Himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness.  By His wounds you have been healed.  For you were straying like sheep, but have now returned to the Shepherd and Overseer of your soul.” -1 Peter 2:24-25

They crucified Him and lifted His cross.  Then they crucified two robbers, one to His left and one to His right.   And Jesus hung there on a cross by nails impaled through His hands and feet.  And still, He remained completely good, completely compassionate, and completely merciful.  The scene below Him was shameful.  Guards wanted to have a little fun while waiting on Him to die, so they decide to gamble over Christ’s possessions.  They wanted to pass the time by playing their own little games at the foot of the cross.  Did they ever feel a drop of His blood from above and think, “That is blood that is being poured out for this very sin”?  How many people today could sit at the foot of the cross and feel drops of His blood and think nothing of it?  They do it.  Although they aren’t literally at Golgotha watching Christ die on a cross, they hear about it.  They hear that He died for them.  They hear that He took their sin and paid ransom for their soul.  But they decide to turn their backs and continue on living life their own way.  Playing their own games.  

But it wasn’t just the guards who were shameful. There was one of the thieves. There were the scoffers in the crowd.  There were the religious leaders.  Throwing their darts of vile jabs and mockings.  They taunted.  They shamed.  They laughed. Noisy.  Vulgar.  Obnoxious. Standing at the cross, their passion was hurling sarcastic hatred.  Theirs was a passion of strong emotion.  And with all His love, He was taking His last breaths wearing their sins. Humble. Thoughtful. Compassionate.  Selfless. Hanging from the cross, His passion was to offer Himself up as an atonement of sin for the souls of man.  His was a passion of suffering.

“When they hurled their insults at Him, He did not retaliate; when He suffered, He made no threats.  Instead He entrusted Himself to Him Who judges justly”.  -1 Peter 2:23

Even as the crowds spit their venom at His pensile body, suspended above a stony hill and growing closer to death, He continued to show us how to live.  His thoughts weren’t on the pain or the suffering.  His thoughts weren’t on the broken bones or exposed muscle, nerves and guts.  He thought of the lost.  There in the depth of His pain, He pleads for the pardon of His murderers.  “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing” (Luke 23:34). He completely forgets Himself.  He loved His murders so much that He chose to pray for them as they committed the act.  And the love from the cross, continued to pour out as surely as His blood did. He looked out and saw His mother and His beloved disciple and thought of them.  He had always been drawn to care for the brokenhearted.  And even in His deepest humiliation and torment, Jesus instructs John to love and care for His mother as his own.  And when one of the criminals hanging from another cross calls out to Jesus and requests, “Remember me when You come into Your Kingdom”, Jesus responds, “Assuredly, I say to you, today you will be with Me in Paradise.” (Luke 23:42-43).  The agony of the moment didn’t stop Him from forgiving a sinner.  The misery didn’t take away from the love that flowed from our Savior. 

God took our sins and put them on our Savior.  And there at the cross, our sins were punished.  Like a lightning rod taking on lightning, Christ took on the wrath of God.  For the punishment of our sins.  “God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in Him will not perish, but have everlasting life” (John 3:16). That is some kind of  love.

“For our sake He made Him to be sin Who knew no sin, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God.” - 2 Corinthians 5:21