MAN AND GOD

We had communion this morning at church. The Pastor had preached on Psalms 22 which is a messianic psalm which simply means that it was a prophecy concerning Christ's Crucifixion. As I meditated on Christ's death on the cross and thanked Him for it as I waited for my little cup of juice and that stale tasting cracker, I was overcome by what He did for me.

When I think of Jesus, I think of how big He is, how awesome He is, how He put the stars into place and set the seas into their places and how after He was done creating it all, He spun it into motion.

As I contemplated what Christ's death on the cross really meant, (we can say that so many times it becomes sort of glib, kwim) the thing that hit me the most was the humiliation Christ had to endure. Here was the God of the universe with the power to call down the angels and turn His tormentors into ash, yet He endured. He endured not only having His back ripped to pieces, but them pushing a thorn crown into His head and mocking Him, spitting on Him, parading Him before a crowd of people who screamed and yelled insults. He endured that most of the people in that crowd just thought He was some kind of deluded crackpot that had had the stupidity to cross words with the Sanhedrin and make them mad enough to get rid of Him. He was the God who created us all, beaten, laughed at and finally crucified.

And He could have stopped it at anytime. What makes Christ so different than any other "martyr" through the ages is that He had a choice right down to the last breath that He drew. But He chose to endure not only the horrendous physical pain and agony of crucifixtion but also the humiliation of a brutal, mocking death. Even as He gasped on the cross, a mocking epitaph hung over His head and soldiers callously cast lots for his clothing.

He did all this for me, for you, for the entire world. He did it for people who are so used to the idea that they forget the magnitude of what He did (forgive me!). He did it for people who blithely ignore His existence for the most part unless they are in trouble. He did it for those that actively deny and curse Him. He died for all of us and He chose to do it the whole entire time. I left church with tears in my eyes, shaken anew at His sacrifice for me. May I never become complacent about it; may I never forget the price HE paid so that I could be free in the truest sense of the word.

John 3:16, "For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whosoever should believe on Him should not perish but have everlasting life."


Amazing Grace - Bridge (Chris Tomlin)
My chains are gone
I've been set free
My God, My Savior died for me
And like a flood
His mercy flows
Unending love, amazing grace