Jesus sacrificed everything

 JESUS SACRIFICED EVERYTHING

“Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.”

JOHN 15.13

Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, though for a good person someone might possibly die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

ROMANS 5.7–8

Based on JOHN 19.16–30

My children knows that Jesus died on a cross, much like many of us, but with varying degrees of understanding, but they don’t yet understand the tragedy of it all. And I fear sometimes that for us as adults, biblical knowledge about Jesus becomes so familiar that it fails to move us to worship.

Imagine, instead, a completely different scenario than the one you know so well, What if Jesus had been decapitated by the sword?

What if He had been burned at the stake?

What if He had been thrown to wild animals?

How would that change our perception of His death? Would it move you with compassion? Dread? Injustice? Pity?

Each of these methods of execution is gruesome, and we shudder when we read accounts of early church martyrs killed in those ways. But crucifixion was considered a more painful and disgraceful form of capital punishment than any of the above. If slaves and criminals could choose, they would choose anything but death on the cross.

Under the Roman Empire, crucifixion was reserved for executing foreigners, lower-class Romans, violent offenders, and traitors. The condemned were often scourged until the soldier could lash out no more. They were forced to march through the city naked, stripped of dignity and pride. Other forms of torture and ridicule were common, as we read about in all the gospel accounts — the soldiers blindfolded Jesus and beat Him, demanding that He prophesy who punched Him, shoving a twisted garland of a thorny shrub onto His head, throwing an elegant robe over His tattered shoulders, striking Him with the staff they had given Him as a sceptre, kneeling before Him with mock salutations, “Hail, king of the Jews!” before rising to spit in His face.

The whole of it is too gruesome to imagine.

Pilate’s soldiers, Herod’s guards, and even the Jewish leaders tortured and humiliated Jesus, and all this was before the Roman soldiers mounted Him on a cross, driving spikes through His hands and feet, thrusting Him up to hang on a roughly hewn stake in the ground, leaving Him to pull Himself up to gasp for each breath of air. Crucified victims couldn’t chase away birds or flies from their wounds, couldn’t restrain their bodily fluids, and couldn’t protect themselves from the scorching heat of the day and the shivering cold of the night. What’s more, crosses were often hung low enough that dogs could try to eat the victim’s feet.

It’s too much.

The brutality and utter depravity of such an execution is too much for our modern sensibilities, so we turn our faces. Who could look upon such torture and not feel sick to their stomach?

But the worst moment was yet to come. Jesus’ own Father turns His face away from His Son. Every sin of every person from all time past, present, and future — even the crimes of those executing Him — were heaped upon His innocent soul. The perfect spotless Lamb of God was being slaughtered for the sins of the world in the most abhorrent and shameful way.

But unlike the two criminals hanging with Him, Jesus was not a powerless prisoner. With a single flex of His muscles He could have healed His own wounds and come down from that cross, a single whisper would have called down legions of warrior angels, a single command and the enemy would be obliterated. What, then, kept Jesus on the cross?

You know the answer, don’t you?

But feel the weight of it.

Love.

Every blow He didn’t reciprocate was love. Every moment He stood naked and mocked was love. Every step toward Golgotha was love. Every gasping breath was love. Every nanosecond from the kiss in the garden to the cessation of His heartbeat … love.

Reflection and Prayer

In lieu of a challenge and written prayer today, spend time being silent before the cross. Allow the spectacle of the cross to imprint on your soul the weight of Jesus’ love. Don’t rush this. Witness your own sins heaped on Jesus and grieve this heinous moment in history. Then reread today’s devotional, pausing wherever you feel the need to respond with sorrow, repentance, adoration, and tears.

If you want to read more 

Isa 52.13–53.12, Mt 26.67–68, 27.22–50, Mk 14.65, 15.12–37, Lk 22.63–65, 23:11–46, Jn 18.22–23, 19.1–37, 2Cor 5.21, Rev 5.12