We are entering Easter week....The world sees bunny rabbit's and new clothes. It proclaims that Easter is a time of new birth.....of spring.......of casting off the winter dust that has gathered on our thoughts, and see life in a fresh new way. A time of colored eggs and baskets filled with candy for the children.
I see Easter as the ultimate defeat of everything wrong with humanity. A time when God himself came down and took on the form of man, walked among us...did things that went beyond the laws of nature and of this world. All the while knowing that a cross filled His future during His time here.
More than a cross was the physical pain and suffering...the humiliation and abuse that came with being identified with a cross. You see righteous people did not hang on crosses. Good people never found themselves nailed to the cross beam of such a thing as a cross. Only those who had been judged and found guilty of crimes were relegated to such a place.
Those who had defied the authorities and sought power for themselves were candidates for the cross.....thieves, low-life's, murder's, the one's deemed as being a threat to the Roman rule of that day. These were the rabble that was herded outside the city to a place where sentence could be carried out.
This was the place that my Jesus chose to go.
Not because He was guilty, but because I was. He went because you also were guilty. You see, it was the Romans who place Him on that cross. It wasn't the Jews who were responsible for His death. It was you....and it was me. My sin placed Him there. Humanity was born with a debt hanging over their collective heads. A debt that could never be paid by any one of us.
Jesus, in obedience to His father, became the payment for that debt. He took my place on that cross....He took my sin, your sin, and as the Bible says "The sins of the world" and received the wrath of His Father in heaven to satisfy that debt. Such a deed was so horrible that darkness covered the earth so that no one could lay eyes upon what took place on that hill where Jesus hung between heaven and hell. So this week, I am overwhelmed by this thought of the love that God has for this world, that He sent His son to be the source that opened the door so that I could have relationship with Him.
Jesus, in obedience to His father, became the payment for that debt. He took my place on that cross....He took my sin, your sin, and as the Bible says "The sins of the world" and received the wrath of His Father in heaven to satisfy that debt. Such a deed was so horrible that darkness covered the earth so that no one could lay eyes upon what took place on that hill where Jesus hung between heaven and hell. So this week, I am overwhelmed by this thought of the love that God has for this world, that He sent His son to be the source that opened the door so that I could have relationship with Him.
When I got home yesterday from Northside, Vicki called me into the office to show me this video of these two sisters singing a version of Leonard Cohen's Hallelujah.
As the song played, tears welled up inside of me and I began to cry. Not tears of sadness, or grief, or pain......but tears of joy and gratitude for what my Jesus had done for me.
SO I will move through this week, carrying with me the thoughts of the victory that came through the darkest of times. A victory that came when a stone was rolled away and the impossible happened. He walked from that tomb resurrected and ready to assume His place as Lord and Savior. What a morning that was. Never been one like since.
Find Christ today and let your hearts embrace the joy of Easter as only a believer can.
God on you....
mbb
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