Christ's suffering

And I'm back again! 

When you think of Christ and what He did for us on the cross, what do you think of? Usually the suffering He went through, the pain and agony He suffered on our behalf. But don't you usually focus on the physical pain of the cross? The physical torture that He endured? There are many other people who have suffered this physical pain, so what makes Christ's suffering so different, aside from the fact that He was undeserving of it? 

In the garden of Gethsemane, Jesus Christ cried out to His Father, "O my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me: nevertheless not as I will, but as Thou wilt." And, "O my Father, if this cup many not pass away from me, except I drink it, Thy will be done." 
In essence, "Father if there is any other way than the cross, let it be done that way." What was it that Christ was dreading? Was it the physical pain that was coming? Was it the shame, shock, and humiliation that the death on a criminal's cross was designed to bring? I am quite sure that He was dreading that to and extent--He was fully God, yet fully human, and it is natural for a human to not look forward to pain and suffering. But there was something different that He was dreading. Experiencing the punishment of sin. What is the punishment of sin? The wrath of God. The turning of the face of God from extending the arm of mercy. The inflicting of an eternity of His full judgement. If Jesus Christ was taking the punishment of all of our sin upon His shoulders, this is what He must experience.

On the cross, Jesus suffered all of these things--the wrath of God, the turning of His face from extending the arm of mercy, the inflicting of an eternity of God's full judgement--the equivalent, of what the necessary punishment was for the sin of all human beings--along with the physical pain and torture that comes with death on a cross, all in just a few hours. Imagine an eternity's worth of judgement for every sinner in the entire world, past present and future, being inflicted on you in the span of just a few hours?  When He cried in agony, "My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?" He was experiencing God the righteous Judge. Someone mentioned that up until that point, Jesus had always spoken of God as His Father. Now, He refers to Him instead as God.  He is experiencing the wrath of a holy and just God. 

But isn't this cruel? you ask.  God the Father willingly and actively delivered up His only begotten Son to endure the punishment of sin.  Cruel? Yes, that's what first comes to my mind when I think about this.  But lets step back and consider the situation from both perspectives--that of the Father, and that of the Son.

Think of the Father. His only begotten Son, a Son who is perfect, whom He loves more that you and I could ever imagine. He loves Him more that Abraham loved Isaac. More than Rebecca loved Jacob. More than Jacob loved Joseph and Benjamin. More than even Mary could have loved her own Son, Jesus in the flesh. We don't have the capacity to love as the Father loves. We simply don't. And God the Father loved His Son more than anything. I think it's safe to assume it grieved Him to think about delivering up His Son to be crucified and to endure the torment of His own righteous and just fury that was destined for all the inhabitants of the world because of their sin. If you had a child that you loved as much as He, it would be by no means an easy or simple thing to deliver up that child to be hurt and shamed and humiliated. It would likely be the hardest thing you ever did in your life. Your heart would cry in love, 'No! don't let it be!' But because God the Father had someone else in mind--filthy, rebellious, disobedient, wicked, evil little sinners called You and Me--because He loved those filthy little sinners so much, He was willing to do it. He loved You and Me so much, rebellious and sinful and wicked as we are, that He couldn't bear to see us have to endure the punishment that we deserved, so, being a Righteous Judge who cannot leave sin unpunished, He made a plan to relieve that debt. The payment of the debt included the inflicting of God's wrath on a perfect, sinless person, and that person was Jesus Christ. It was the only way. And God the Father was willing, on our behalf, to deliver up His only Son whom He loved, to be the payment for our sin, to endure the full torment of His wrath in place of us. So that we don't have to experience that righteous wrath and fury that we deserve. 

Now, let's think about the Son's perspective. After considering the perspective of the Father, it makes it a little easier to understand, but it would still seem cruel if the Father delivered up His Son without His Son's consent or agreement to the plan. "Easy for the Father to do," we think. "He's not the one experiencing the pain." What if Christ didn't want to endure the punishment of our sins? I am quite sure that He didn't want to, either. I am quite sure that He thought of the punishment with extreme dread and trepidation. No one in their right minds would enjoy that wrath of God. Would it be safe to say, even though He is God and not merely human, that God the Son did not look forward to being the payment for our sins? Yet He, too had someone else in mind. Those filthy, rebellious, disobedient, wicked, evil little sinners called You and I. And because He saw us even while we were still in rebellion and sin, and He loved us so much that He couldn't bear to see us wretches experience the wrath of His holy and just Father, He willingly gave Himself up to the Father, to be delivered up, taken from His glory and relocated to a filthy, wicked earth, to live among and be rejected and mocked and shamed and spit upon and persecuted by the filthy little wretches He had come to save, all His life, to go to the cross and be mocked and shamed and spit upon and beat some more,  and then experience the torment of the full wrath of God as punishment for, not His sins, but the sins of all the people of the world, people who even now spit upon Him and laid the whip to His sides and nailed His hands to the cross and mocked Him and placed a crown of thorns upon His head and tore His clothes from Him. He was dying for these people. Not because we deserve His love and forgiveness by ANY MEANS WHATSOEVER. We deserve the  full wrath of God, inflicted upon us for an eternity of eternities. But because He loved us. Don't ask me why. There isn't an answer. He simply loved us with the love He has that is unexplainable. 

So, there. After considering both perspectives, what do you think now? God the Father did not give up His Son because He didn't love Him, He did it because He loved us SO much, that He was willing to deliver His Son up and inflict the judgement on Him, because there was no other way. Jesus Christ is the only perfect One who has ever lived and ever will live on this earth.  And God the Son wasn't forced to go to the cross; I'm sure He didn't look forward to it, but He did it because He also loved us SO much, that He was willing to deliver Himself up to the Father's hands to become the payment for our sins.  Does that make a difference in how we view Christ at the cross? 

"What shall we then say to these things? If God be for us, who can be against us? He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things?" ~Romans 8:31-32 

*And, by 'all things', this verse does not mean a luxurious house and wealth and everything you could want.  Those are things material. This means things that are eternal. It means, if God has not even withheld His own Son, but has delivered Him up to be crucified, what else would He not do for us? It's like a boss saying to his employee, "We have decided that we want to bestow you with a great gift. We are going to pay for you to fly to any place in the world, no matter how expensive it is, and we are going to pay for all your expenses--your food and lodging and anything you would like to do or buy while you are there." And then, after expressing his gratitude over and over again, with tears of joy, the employee asks for a tissue and the boss denies it to him. If God has done so much as to give His own Son, is He not also going to provide for us our daily needs and be faithful to grow us into the likeness of His Son, be with us through everything and bring us home to glory when we have been laid to our rest? These things are trivial in comparison. Just wanted to clarify :)

Now, as you go about your day--or night for that matter--think of the suffering of Christ in a new light. Not just the physical pain He endured--the nail pierced hands and feet, the lashes, the crown of thorns, the shame, shock and humiliation. Think also of what He endured more than that. The torture of all the wrath of God designed for every sinner that ever lived, inflicted upon Him in a matter of three hours.  And He did that willingly. For you. You may not think that you are wicked. But you are. Trust me, you are. 

Blessings,

Julia <3

Passover, Jesus' death, and Resurrection Sunday

Greetings!

Recently I was listening to a sermon about the Passover.  In the sermon, the pastor talked about the first Passover, the one where God had been sending plagues to the Egyptians because for 400 years they had enslaved the the Israelite's, God's people, and refused to release them at His command. The last of these plagues was one where all the firstborn in the land, man or beast would die. But God provided a protection from His wrath for the Israelite's. He told them to take a spotless lamb, kill it, take a hyssop branch and, using it, apply the blood of the lamb to their doorpost. They were to roast and eat the lamb, at the same time being prepared for traveling because God knew and had warned them that the Egyptian Pharaoh would set them free after this plague and they needed to be ready.  

When the angel of death passed through the land, the angel would see the blood that had been applied to the doorpost of each Jewish house and those under the roof of that house would be spared. This, the Israelites did, and were spared the effects of the plague. At midnight, the angel of death swept through the land killing all the firstborn of every male, man and beast. When Pharaoh discovered that his firstborn son was dead, he called Moses and Aaron, the ambassadors of the Israelite's, and commanded them to take the children of Israel and leave. 

It was with great rejoicing that the Israelite's left Egypt and their slavery behind, and thus began their great journey.  God commanded that the Passover was to be kept every year in remembrance of how He had passed over them, spared them from the plague of death. The way they were to celebrate this event was by taking a lamb, killing it, and eating it as they did that night--without breaking any of it's bones, God commands in Exodus 12:46, which interestingly reminds me of the prophecy in Psalm 34:20 and the fulfillment of that prophecy in John 19:33 and :36. (These events are found in Exodus 11-12)

Anyway, fast forward about 2000 years and you come to the death of Christ. As you probably know, Jesus Christ died at the time of celebrating the Passover. In the sermon I was listening to, the pastor was talking about what Jesus must have been feeling during that time. He said that at that time, around 2.5-3 million people would be gathering in Jerusalem to celebrate the Passover. According to Bible regulations, there was to be one spotless lamb sacrificed for every 10 people. You're talking some 250,000 lambs being slaughtered. Each lamb probably contained more than a gallon of blood. The way it would happen is the lamb would be sacrificed, and the blood would be taken and poured at the base of the altar. Now, with more than a gallon of blood per lamb, and 250,000 lambs or more being slaughtered, where would all that blood go? Well, there was a little conduit from the base of the altar that led down to the brook Kidron. The blood drained through this, flowing into the water.

This brook lay in the Kidron valley which separated the Temple mount, from the Mount of Olives. The Garden of Gethsemane was at the base of the Mount of Olives. So as our Lord passed through on His way to the Garden of Gethsemane in the night that He was betrayed, He passed over a river of blood made from the blood of over 100,000 sacrificial lambs (they celebrated the Passover on two days--one day for the Judeans, and one day for the Galileans, so half the lambs were sacrificed on each day). What a picture that must have been to Him to have been probably at the temple, watching all these lambs being sacrificed and then passing over this river of blood, knowing that they all were a picture of what He was about to do; how He was to, very soon, become the ultimate sacrificial Lamb and His own blood was to be spilled at the cross of Calvary. 

The Bible tells us that in the Garden of Gethsemane He was so emotional that He began to sweat blood (Luke 22:44). He suffered such emotional strain at what was about to happen to Him, that He began to sweat blood. He then was arrested and taken through six trials-three Jewish, three Roman (John 18:12-14, Matt. 26:57, Matt. 27:1, Matt. 27:2, Luke 23:6-12, Matt. 27:15-26). Imagine the stress! All His disciples having abandoned Him, being interrogated by these leaders, having false witnesses being brought in to try to accuse Him of something, anything that He did wrong, being mocked, spit upon and hit, and very likely not being able to sleep at all. He then is taken and scourged, brought to a hall, a purple robe being placed upon Him, a reed in His hand and a crown of thorns upon His head, and He is mocked, spit upon and hit some more (John 18:19-23, Matt. 26:59-68, Luke 23:6-12, Matt. 27:24-31).

After that, He is made to carry His cross-piece along a road and the fact that along the way a man named Simon was recruited to help Him carry it, shows that He was probably very weak at that point (Matt. 27:32). He is taken a place called Calvary, or Golgotha which means the place of the Skull, nailed to the cross and tortured. Death by crucifixion was supposed to be a shameful, slow and painful death, and the victim usually died from exposure or exhaustion. Sometimes it even took up to a week for a victim to die. The Romans were experts at this. So there Jesus hung, with the accusation title of 'King of the Jews' hung above His head (Matt. 27:37).

The people came to mock Him and happily watch His suffering (Matt. 27:39-43)--and remember that this was the Passover. In the middle of the celebration of this feast, these people are coming to joyfully watch and take part in the sufferings of another person. This shows the pure wickedness and evil in the hearts of man. The Bible says that even the robbers whom He was crucified with mocked Him (Matt. 27: 44). Now, in crucifixion, breathing was hard and painful. Yet these robbers are using their breath, to mock Jesus Christ. Again, what wickedness and evil in the hearts of man! 

After Jesus suffers this painful agony, mentally, emotionally, physically, even experiencing the desertion of God the Father, He cries, "It is finished!" (I love those words) and takes His last breath (John 19:30)

In the sermon  I was listening to, the pastor only went to the part of what Jesus might have been thinking as He passed the brook Kidron, but as I was sitting there listening, I thought, what a depressing story! Imagine the darkness, pain, loneliness, agony, stress and grief! Imagine how He must have dreaded the coming events--So bad that He even sweat blood. And it struck me, why is this holiday that is coming up so joyous? I honestly, in that split second, forgot about the ending of story. Why is this upcoming holiday such a joyous thing?  

And then I remembered. Because He didn't stay dead. He didn't stop there. He rose again. He rose from the grave. The grave could not keep it's prey, death could not keep it's grip upon Him, He rose again. This wasn't just a spiritual rising. It was physical, but in a new way. He could go through doors and walls, but He ate, and talked and His disciples could feel Him--He was not just an apparition (Luke 24:36-43).
Christ is risen indeed. This is why we can have true peace. Because death has been conquered. Sin has been defeated. So no matter what happens in this life, it doesn't matter--Jesus Christ is risen! If we are a believer, we have forgiveness of sins, we are cloaked in Christ's righteousness, and we will live forever with Him in Heaven--if life brings troubles and things don't go our way, what matter? We have been forgiven. We are made new. We will be with Jesus. It is finished. This is why we celebrate Resurrection Sunday with such rejoicing.  

And the glory of it is, when a sinner, by God's grace, sees that he is guilty of sin, sees that he is in rebellion towards a just God, has broken God's law, the punishment of which is death (Rom 6:23) and falls on his knees--physically or not--in repentance, God looks on him, sees His only Son, Jesus Christ, suffering in agony on the cross of Calvary, bearing the weight of the sin of the world--past, present and future--upon His shoulders, the blood of the ultimate sacrificial Lamb pouring from His hands, His feet, His side, and He is satisfied.  It is enough. The demands for forgiveness, cleansing of sin have been met, and He is satisfied (Isaiah 53). Amazing, isn't it? 

Notice also, the parallel in the observing of the Passover that I wrote about in the beginning of this post.   The wrath of God has been announced, He is coming to bring judgement in the land of Egypt. But He makes a provision so that the Hebrews wouldn't have to suffer and experience His wrath, that is the blood of a lamb. Translated to now, the wrath of God has been announced. He is coming to bring judgement on the world. But He has made a provision for us, so that if, by faith, we accept His provision, we won't have to suffer and experience His wrath; that is the blood of the Lamb, Jesus Christ. Those who applied the blood of a lamb to the doorpost of their homes, were spared the wrath of God. In the same way, those who apply the blood of the Lamb to the doorpost of their hearts, are spared the wrath of God. I sincerely hope that you have already accepted His provision and applied to your heart the blood of the spotless, blameless, ultimate sacrificial Lamb that was sacrificed for you.

"He has made Him who knew no sin, to become sin for us, that we may become the righteousness of God in Him. "~2 Corinthians 5:21

"Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In His great mercy He has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead." ~1 Peter1:3

"Greater love has no than this: that a man lay down his life for his friends." ~John 15:13

Blessings,
Julia <3
*Pictures one, two and four from the top are mine; please do not use without permission.*