Last night, our church put on a wonderful Easter Cantata. During the music, images of Christ in his final days were played on a big screen. Some of the images were very difficult to watch. The video showed Jesus being beaten, tortured, and humiliated. I found myself getting so angry at the people doing this to Him. How could they do this to the Son of the Living God? How could they allow Him to go through this horrible suffering?
And then, I saw myself doing all of that to Jesus. I saw myself beating Him, torturing Him, humiliating Him. I saw myself sentencing an innocent man to die. How could I so easily be angry at the people actually doing this to Him and not myself?
GRACE. MERCY. LOVE. FORGIVENESS.
Every person on this earth.. past, present, and future.. nailed Jesus to the cross. Our sins are the reason that He had to suffer and die. WHY? Why aren't we punished? Jesus was innocent. He was perfect in every way, doing no wrong, committing no sin. But He became sin for us, so that we might share in the righteousness of God. We should all suffer the judgement and wrath of God. We are all sinners. Dirty, ugly, sinners with black hearts, unacceptable before God.
God knew that there was nothing we could do to escape His wrath. He knew that no good deed, no amount of praying, sacrificing, fasting, or keeping the law would save us. Our salvation is not found in any of those things. God knew that we could only be saved from His horrific wrath, if He offered the perfect, atoning sacrifice for us. Through the blood of Jesus, all of us can experience salvation from God's judgement and wrath. It's a free gift. FREE. We just have to accept it.
We try to make accepting this free gift hard. We try to attach strings to the freedom found in Christ. There are no strings, there are no requirements, there is nothing that we can do to earn it. IT IS FREE. We just have to simply accept what He did for us. We did NOTHING. HE did EVERYTHING. His precious blood washes us white as snow.
Professing faith in Christ and becoming a follower of Him, isn't always easy. As a matter of fact, most of the time it is very hard. It would be pretty awesome if things were just perfection for you after receiving salvation. But things aren't always awesome, or wonderful, or perfect. But Jesus.. He is awesome, He is wonderful, He is perfect. We can find rest in Him. True rest and true peace in our hearts, despite our circumstances. He will carry you, He will fight for you, He will be your strength. In this world, we will have trouble.. but CHRIST HAS OVERCOME THE WORLD! Praise Jesus!
We will be celebrating Resurrection Sunday in less than a week. I pray that all of us will celebrate it in our hearts daily. He is the RISEN SAVIOR!
