Crucified?

I can’t believe I’m here. At the foot of Your … cross. Surrounded by proud Roman soldiers gambling for Your clothes and mocking, “If you are the king of the Jews, save yourself!”.  Smug chief priests, teachers of the law, and elders sneering, “He saved others; let him save himself if he is the Christ of God, the Chosen One. Let God rescue him now if He wants him.”  Random passersby jeering, showering insults, “You who are going to destroy the temple and build it in three days, save yourself!” “Come down from the cross, if you are the Son of God!”  Distraught women weeping.

Crucified?  Between two common criminals?  Their crime?  Robbery.  Stealing.  Selfishly taking away from others.  But You – You selflessly gave … everywhere You went.  Teaching… healing… loving.  This shouldn’t be happening!

Just a week ago I followed You into Jerusalem with that bustling, joyful, noisy throng of people shouting,

“Hosanna!”

“Hosanna in the highest!”

“Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord!”

“Hosanna to the Son of David!”

“Blessed is the King of Israel!” 

Everyone hung on Your words as You taught at the Temple.  The crowds followed You, bringing their sick to be healed.  We marveled at Your miracles.  We were all so thirsty for Your teaching, for You taught with authority, Your words had the ring of truth, not like those of the chief priests and teachers of the law.  You genuinely seemed to love people.  To truly care about them.  Even… the outcasts… and sinners.  With nothing in it for Yourself.  No thought of future reward or some ulterior motive.  Just simple, pure, honest love and concern and compassion.  You were so different from any other leader.  You turned all our presumptions upside-down...

How did everything change … so quickly?  I still have those words from the angry crowd ringing in my ears. 

“Crucify!”

“Crucify Him!”

I don’t understand.  1) You are blameless.  2) You have superior authority.  How can You allow them to do this to You?  How can this be happening?!?   

“Father, forgive them.  For they do not know what they are doing.”

Oh God!  It … it makes me sick … to really look at You.  A dreadful crown of thorns has been beaten into Your scalp.  Your face is a swollen collage of purple-blue bruises.  Clumps of spit have dried in Your hair.  What is left of the flesh on Your shoulders, back, and legs is a mass of bruised, ripped, torn, bleeding tissue with skin hanging in long ribbons.  Your body sags under its own weight against cruel, heavy, square wrought-iron nails, tearing through major nerves in Your wrists and feet.  Each excruciating breath tears more tissue and forces splinters from the rough beams into Your raw back.  You’re covered with blood and sweat and tears and grime.  Disfigured to the point that I hardly recognize You. 

But wait.  There’s … something else mixed in with the blood and grime.  What are those?  Letters?  No … whole words.  << gasp! >>  LORD, what are those words doing on You?  You, the Holy One!  Those are words of sin and pride and denial and unbelief.  LORD … You are completely covered!  There must be some mistake!  You have no part with this junk, this mess, this filth.  No, LORD, no!  This should never be happening to You!

And then it happens.  In a moment that seems frozen in time … His eyes meet mine.  … … … Those eyes … oh, those eyes … so full of pain … yet so full of love.  And in an instant … sober, humiliating understanding and the awful realization of truth washes over me.  All those words … they are mine.  They belong to me.  You are covered in all my guilt and all my sin and all my humiliation and all my self-righteousness and all my corruption and all my wickedness and all my fault.  You are there because of me! 

Love.  Pure, holy, selfless love.

“Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!”

You bear my sins,

my griefs,

my infirmities,

my sorrows. 

You are afflicted on my behalf. 

Pierced for my transgressions,

crushed for my iniquities. 

The punishment that brings me peace is upon You. 

By Your wounds,

I am healed.  

Me, the wretched transgressor. 

You had done no violence. 

No deceit was found in Your mouth. 

And yet You bear my sins in Your body on the tree and make intercession… for me?

God made Him who had no sin to be sin for us. 

“My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?!”

The eternal relationship … broken?  Surpassing Your intense, excruciating physical suffering, and the unbearably heavy weight of sin and shame and guilt, You now are forced to experience the greatest suffering, the greatest torment of all … the suffering of a soul separated from the Father.  Is this why Your sweat was like drops of blood in the Garden?  The most precious thing in the universe – pure, deep, rich, holy fellowship.  Destroyed.  By me. 

This final blow must be the hardest, because I can practically watch Your life ebb away.  For the last three hours, a heavy darkness had come upon the land, as if creation itself could not bear the weight, the injustice, of condemned innocence. The perfect, guiltless, spotless Lamb of God, receiving the blow I was due.  Killed for my transgressions.  God has made Your life a guilt offering as You willingly lay it down, pouring Your life out unto death.  Crushed, crucified, slaughtered, slain.  And with one final agonizing breath …

“It … is … finished!”

How Deep the Father's Love For Us

For the past 1,200 years, the priest has blown the shophar (the ram’s horn) at 3:00pm - the moment the Passover lamb is sacrificed.  But this year, as the priest blew the shophar from the Temple, You bowed Your head and gave up Your spirit.  The perfect Passover Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.  An earthquake rocked the place.  Holy people came back to life.  And the 4 inch thick veil of the Temple was torn in two from top to bottom.