Imagine having to stand and watch every sin you’ve ever committed replayed for all the world to see—your secret addictions, your selfish motives, your angry outbursts, your critical attitudes, your jealous heart. How do you think you would feel?
Well, Jesus experienced much worse. The Bible says, “[He]…bore our sins in His own body on the tree, that we, having died to sins, might live for righteousness— by whose stripes you were healed” (1 Peter 2:24 NKJV).
It’s bad enough to die for sins you didn’t commit, but imagine being “forsaken” by God! It’s the same word Paul used when he wrote, “Demas hath forsaken me, having loved this present world” (2 Timothy 4:10). Paul looked for Demas and couldn’t find him. And on the cross, Jesus looked for His Father and couldn’t find Him either.
Does that mean the Psalmist was wrong when he wrote, “I have never seen the righteous forsaken” (Psalm 37:25 NIV)? No, because at that moment Jesus was anything but righteous. When you look at Him h a n g i n g there, you will see the g o s s i p e r, the liar, the cheater, the alcoholic, the porn addict, the child abuser, the murderer.
Does it bother you to see His name linked with theirs? Well, Jesus did even more. He put Himself in their place—and yours.
In a move that broke God’s heart and gave us the gift of eternal life, God poured out His righteous judgment on His Son. So when Jesus cried from the cross, “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?” He said it so that you would never have to. What wondrous love!
The word “resurrection,” as in “Resurrection Day” (or Easter), which we just recently celebrated, means “the standing up of a corpse.” Most religions teach the concept of immortality, but only the Christian faith teaches bodily resurrection. “If we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also who sleep in Jesus will God bring with him.”
The patriarch Job, whose children all seemingly died tragically in a single day, asked, “If a man dies, shall he live again?” (Job 14:14 NKJV).
We ask this question when death claims someone we love. So God gave Job—and us—the answer that dries our tears, heals our broken hearts and focuses us on something greater than this temporal life with its troubles: “For I know that my Redeemer lives, and He shall stand at last on the earth; and after my skin is destroyed, this I know, that in my flesh I shall see God, whom I shall see for myself, and my eyes shall behold, and not another. How my heart yearns within me” (Job 19:25-27 NKJV). What wondrous love!
The next time you see a butterfly soaring, stop and remind yourself, “That’s my future!” No matter how you dress this body up, at best, it will always be a caterpillar. But when it emerges from the cocoon of death and rises to meet the Lord, it will take on His beauty and His likeness. “The dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And thus we shall always be with the Lord. Therefore, comfort one another with these words” (1 Thessalonians 4:16-18 NKJV).
What wondrous love! Jesus died on the cross, was buried in a tomb, arose the third day and offers you and me eternal life if we will believe in and receive Him as He is. What wondrous love!
