A Palm Sunday Reminder

[HKHaugan]

John Stott summarized the injustice Jesus bore and bore in our place. Think about this and what we are called to be in this present world. He writes the following:

"It is hard for us to grasp, let alone to feel, how completely the verdict seemed to have gone against Jesus when he died, and how in consequence the apostles' past hopes had been extinguished.

Jesus had been condemned in a Jewish court for blasphemy by duly authorized legal procedures.

He was then sentenced and executed for sedition by the Romans.

Worse, he had been 'hanged on a tree' and therefore (according to Dt. 21:22-23) had died under the curse of God.

After that, he was taken down from the cross and buried, which was the final touch in disposing of him.

The public rejection of Jesus could not have been more thorough. At every dimension he was finished - judicial, political, spiritual and physical. Religion, law, God, man and death had all conspired to wipe him off the face of the earth. It was all over now. The verdict was as decisive as it could possibly have been. No power on earth could ever rescue or reinstate him.

But the apostles had left out of account the resurrection power of God.

Small wonder that their earliest proclamation could be summarized in the words, 'You killed him, but God raised him'. And in raising him, God reversed the verdict which had been passed on him ... In other words, by raising Jesus, God was making a declaration about him, and in particular was turning all human opinions about him upside down.

Condemned for blasphemy, he was now designated Son of God by the resurrection.

Executed for sedition, for claiming to be a king, God made him 'both Lord and Christ'.

Hanged on a tree under the curse of God, he was vindicated as the Saviour of sinners, the curse he bore being due to us and not to him."

The Daily thought is taken from Authentic Christianity 1995 John Stott and Timothy Dudley-Smith. Used by permission of Inter-Varsity Press UK, Nottingham. All rights reserved.