The Full Weight of Us
Today is Good. That is what we call it. Not because in some places we get the day off. Or because it represents the last Friday you can't eat meat...(what is that about anyway!) And not because it is the first Friday of Spring this year. It is the day we reflect on the death of Jesus Christ. For some a historical figure. For some, Savior.
For those of us who claim him as Savior, this day is good because it was the burden we carried that was shouldered by Jesus before a council of the religious and a judgment of the oppressors. His death sentence was something we earned for sin and corruption since that early day in the garden when our first parents chose disobedience and since the earliest days of our own lives when we lived out our inherited sinfulness.
And upon that cross it all was lifted. He who knew no sin became sin so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. Jesus hung on the cross with the full weight of us bearing down on him. The pain. The mocking. And the abandonment he experience from the Father who had turned away his face from the One who had become sin for us. An eternal relationship, severed.
I see the weight of all of that every day I look in the mirror. Every moment when I view my need and sinfulness rightly. The filth of my condemnation before Christ. We can take it for granted, what forgiveness costed. But it is days like this one that we call good when we can reflect anew on the self-seeking wretchedness of me and you that Jesus willingly took on to solve the problem of sin and reconcile a people to himself.
Darkness fell that day. All of creation witnessed to the separation taking place. How could there be light at a time like this. Heavy. Painful. Effective. Then the declaration with a loud, death-shattering voice, "It is finished!"
And it was. For you. Once for all. Jesus' life for yours. His blood for your covering. His record for your righteousness.
This is what is good. Live in this goodness today.
For those of us who claim him as Savior, this day is good because it was the burden we carried that was shouldered by Jesus before a council of the religious and a judgment of the oppressors. His death sentence was something we earned for sin and corruption since that early day in the garden when our first parents chose disobedience and since the earliest days of our own lives when we lived out our inherited sinfulness.
And upon that cross it all was lifted. He who knew no sin became sin so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. Jesus hung on the cross with the full weight of us bearing down on him. The pain. The mocking. And the abandonment he experience from the Father who had turned away his face from the One who had become sin for us. An eternal relationship, severed.
I see the weight of all of that every day I look in the mirror. Every moment when I view my need and sinfulness rightly. The filth of my condemnation before Christ. We can take it for granted, what forgiveness costed. But it is days like this one that we call good when we can reflect anew on the self-seeking wretchedness of me and you that Jesus willingly took on to solve the problem of sin and reconcile a people to himself.
Darkness fell that day. All of creation witnessed to the separation taking place. How could there be light at a time like this. Heavy. Painful. Effective. Then the declaration with a loud, death-shattering voice, "It is finished!"
And it was. For you. Once for all. Jesus' life for yours. His blood for your covering. His record for your righteousness.
This is what is good. Live in this goodness today.
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