Imagine sitting behind locked doors for fear that those who killed your master may come for you next. On Saturday, the disciples’ great and perfect friend lay in a sealed tomb.
It sure seemed that everything had gone wrong. But this was all God’s plan A. There were many times people wanted to kill Jesus, but Christ always evaded them, leading up to the perfect timing and place and people involved in the moment of His crucifixion. He wasn’t killed in the garden, or after He made the great “I AM” statement, and they picked up stones to stone him. It had been at the cross, where as John points out, numerous prophecies were fulfilled from Golgotha to the Garden Tomb.
BELIEVE
Will you know believe John’s testimony? He wrote so YOU would believe. Will you not believe Jesus was sacrificed for your sins? Will you be like Pilot, hearing and seeing the truth, but walking away, washing your hands of it? Or will you be like the thief on the cross, calling upon Him to save you, believing this work accomplished was the punishment for your sins?
The historical evidence that Jesus lived is absolutely indisputable. So you must ask who He is. Is He just a historical figure, like King Tut, or Shakespeare, or Ronald Reagan . . . or was He the Son of God, sent to save us? You must believe, He not only existed, but that He was crucified for the debt you owed.
John’s gospel gives us seven I Am statement. Consider how:
“The bread of life” was sacrificed so we would never know spiritual hunger. The light of the world faced utter darkness so our blindness would end. “I Am the DOOR” took the punishment so we would have an open way to God. The Good Shepherd was the lamb led to the slaughter. The resurrection and the life rose again so we would live abundantly. The TRUTH and The WAY provided our salvation through His death. The True Vine obeyed to the point of the cross so we could be grafted in. Truly He was the Great I Am who died and rose again.
BEHOLD
Six years ago this spring, my husband knelt down on one knee and offered me a diamond ring. I was in love with him, so I said yes, and I was then also captured by the gem on my finger. In the following days, I turned it, examining it in all lights and from all angels, distracted by its sparkle while at the steering wheel. It was a beautiful expression of his love for me. I was ready at a moment’s notice to show anyone who asked me to see it. I even did a u-turn on my way to work to go back home to get it from my nightstand because once I had forgotten it! About a year ago I had my ring sent to the jewelers, and I took comfort knowing that if someone had switched it out for another, I would know because I knew my diamond so well.
The gospel is like this. It is not only for the day we were saved. It is precious, valuable beyond compare, and there is always some new way to meditate on it. We are daily to behold Him, behold the work of the cross. Examining the gospel in all lights and from all angles. Scripture gives us endless ways to meditate and marvel at the mercy of the Cross. Each book of the Bible points to it.
One day all will behold Him who was pierced face to face. Him, who WE pierced.
“Behold, he is coming with the clouds, and every eye will see him, even those who pierced him, and all tribes of the earth…” (Revelation 1:7)
The cross is the answer for the shame and guilt we don’t need to carry any longer. His death was not partially successful, where we still must carry SOME of our guilt or suffer SOME of the punishment or EARN some of the favor. “It is finished.” He has wiped out our transgressions. Jerry Bridges said, “Any time we are tempted to doubt God’s love, we should go back to the cross.”
The cross is the answer for our sorrows. Jesus can sympathize with us in our weakness — He knows the full weight of our suffering and sorrow, because He carried every last ounce of it to and on the cross.
“Surely our griefs He Himself bore, and our sorrows He carried; Yet we ourselves esteemed Him stricken, smitten of God and afflicted.” (Isaiah 53:49)
The cross is the answer to our life’s motivation. We don’t have a single merit and clean motive on our initiative…our good works are useless, our righteousness like filthy rags. Because of what Christ did, the one great, final, finished work, all is accomplished. Our good works are to thank Him. We were saved for the purpose of carrying out good works to show our love to Him. We are compelled to serve Him out of love no compulsion or fear.
The cross is the answer to any discouragement we face. Note the verbs and purpose statement of these verse from Hebrews 12:2-3:
“Fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. For Consider Him who has endured such hostility by sinners against Himself, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.”
Are you weary and losing heart today? FIX your eyes on Jesus. And another verb, CONSIDER Him who endured such hostility SO THAT you will not grow discouraged. This is how we can take up our cross as disciples and follow Him in joy.
The cross – the gospel of Jesus – is the answer to our discouragement, to our daily sorrows we bear, to our motivation to do what we do. The good news of the cross — cling to it. Consider, fix your eyes on it, like a newly engaged woman with her diamond. He is worthy of all our attention and acknowledgement. Behold like the women at Golgotha, only with full rejoicing because we know the rest of the story, that the grave could not hold Him.
Studying the crucifixion gives me new eyes for this old poem, which checks out, when you stop to consider the weight of its truth . . .
“In that old rugged cross, stained with blood so divine,
A wondrous beauty I see,
For ’twas on that old cross Jesus suffered and died,
To pardon and sanctify me.
So I’ll cherish the old rugged cross,
Till my trophies at last I lay down;
I will cling to the old rugged cross,
And exchange it someday for a crown.”
Abigail Rehmert 