Lent 23 The Cross and Death, Between Good Friday and Easter

[HKHaugan]

Lent 23 The Cross and Death
Between Good Friday and Easter is today’s burden to place at the foot of the Cross. Why did Jesus die and just what did He embrace on the Cross? His last words tell us a whole lot. What He embraced was sin in all of its dimensions, its intent, its content, its extent and its power. Look at each one closely and ponder them.

The First Word
My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?
Forsakenness.
The forsakenness that Jesus experienced reached back into Adam when he and Eve found themselves alone, naked, afraid, separated from God and one another. That aloneness carries the weight of feeling forsaken, given up on, with no hope of reconciliation and then justifying why everyone else including God is to blame. It is the forsakenness Cain felt when he tried to justify his inability to take responsibility for the murder of his brother through self-pity. It is the guilt David felt with Bathsheba, the inadequacy Moses expressed before the Lord, the isolation, fear and loneliness of the persecuted prophets. But they reflect the lonely indecisive self-conscious moments when we are tempted and make self-centered choices apart from God. It is as Cain said, ‘more than I can bear.’ Those moments Jesus embraced for all of us in His mind and heart.

The Second Word
Father forgive them for they do not know what they are doing.
Insignificance.
He was God the Son but unrecognized. He was the Messiah but rejected. He was the exact representation of God but ignored. In that time Jesus was simply an anonymous insignificant nobody in an insignificant country with insignificant people and an insignificant religion. He was simply another thankless and burdensome task for officials and executioners. He was everything the world rejected in its thirst for success, wealth and power. As far as the world was concerned He was a loser. He embraced the lonely unrecognized anonymity and feeling of insignificance in all of us.

The Third Word
I tell you the truth, today you will be with me in paradise.
Now.
The eternal present, the redemption of the self-conscious moment, the ‘now’ moment. God has placed eternity in the hearts of men. Everyone yearns for perfection every moment, a perfect ending and a perfect place. The thief expressed what we all desire, paradise, the fulfillment of the unfulfilled. We fear judgment and look to be rescued. We need a relationship we can trust in the self-conscious moments of choice and decision. Two thieves hung on crosses next to Jesus. On the one side a thief mocked Jesus. On the other was one who accepted Him and asked to be taken into His Kingdom. Note that Jesus’ hands were extended to each but only one accepted. He embraced unbelief and mockery. At the same time He guaranteed eternal life to those who accept Him.

The Fourth Word
Father, into your hands I commit my Spirit.
Faith.
Every person knows there is an invisible reality. We live with it everyday. It is the reality of the unseen good and evil. It is the spiritual dimension. It is the motivating factor in the visible world. Every choice and decision is made in faith in something. It is an invisible spiritual process of choosing between good and evil, being right as opposed to being wrong and being able to justify our choices and consequent behavior. When Jesus committed His Spirit into His Father’s hands He was relying on His Father to guide the Spirit as the Father chose. He was redeeming faith. He gave up the direction of His life and His death to the will of the Father. He put His trust, His belief and His faith totally in His Father’s hands. As the Father trusted and believed in Him to be led by the Holy Spirit in His earthly life now Jesus, about to die, placed His trust and belief in the Father to be led in the same Spirit to do whatever He wanted with Him. He embraced broken and misplaced faith.

The Fifth Word
Dear woman, here is your son. Son, here is your mother.
Family.
A spiritual family is being born. Jesus is proclaiming the disciple to be a son and the mother is to be the bearer of more children. Jesus had brothers but remember when Jesus was told one time that His mother and His brothers were outside waiting for Him He replied that His mother and brothers were those who did the will of His Father. The family He was starting was His Body, the Body of Christ, that would be the bearer of new children, new believers, new disciples of Jesus, the family that would redeem families. Even on the Cross He is looking forward to the future of God’s images and likenesses being redeemed by His self-conscious faith moments. He embraced the broken families of the world declaring believers to be sons of righteousness.

The Sixth Word
I am thirsty
Real thirst.
Remember we discussed Jesus’ Fourth Beatitude, “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst after righteousness for they will be filled?” Here on the Cross, Jesus is thirsting to be right, a thirst no water or other drink could satisfy. His thirst is because He is experiencing sin; the lack of right, what guilt feels like, what self-doubt is, what faithlessness is, what self-centeredness is, what self deceit and deceit in others does, the attack of evil spirits of fear, anxiety, terror, anger luring Him to compromise and reject His Father, Himself and the Spirit,-----He is thirsting for the Spirit of righteousness, the rightness of His Father, the rightness He had but gave up to bear sin for love of His Father.
“God made Him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God.” 2Cor.5:21 No wonder He said He thirsted. He embraced the thirst to be good was because He embraced the full extent of the experience of sin and evil.

The Seventh Word
It is finished.
Sacrifice
The work Jesus came to do was the spiritual work that led him to, and was completed on, the Cross. His death was the end of a perfect life, flawless, obedient, holy, faithful and justified. What he completed was more than just the life He lived. It was The Life that reached back to Adam and forward for eternity, the life that covered the fact that “There is no one who is righteous (right), no not one. All have fallen short of the glory of God (Rom.3:10, 23).” He completed the right use of the mind, the right use of the heart and the right use of the Spirit. His life was given as a sacrifice and, as He said, a ransom for many. His was a work of grace to show that all men are under God’s acceptance. His work was a work of love to show that all mankind is loved by Him, even His enemies. His work was a work of faith that even when we are unfaithful His faith is covering us. His work was a work of belief in that He believes in us even when we can’t believe in ourselves. His work was work of trust even when we can’t be trusted. His work was a work of redemption in that He redeemed the moment, the self-conscious moment of choice and decision. He redeemed what it means to be human and lifted the individual from anonymity to recognition by God returning to us the personal relationship we lost because of Adam. This and so much more was completed, finished on the Cross. Jesus embraced the work needed to be done, the sacrifice that no one but Him could undertake, the death to sin, a sinless person’s blood given embracing sin and dying at the hands of sinners.

“He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but also for the sins of the whole world.” 1Jn.2:2, therefore “…by one sacrifice He has made perfect forever those who are being made holy.” Heb.10:14

Tomorrow is when we remember the Resurrection but today is today, the day we need to ponder what the Cross means for each of our hearts. Where are we in the Word of words? What are we doing with our self-conscious moments? Do we experience forsakenness, insignificance, being lost in the ‘now’, lack of faith, spiritual family depth, thirst to be right with God and others and to feel like we are sacrificing what is necessary to be a mature disciple? We can only thank the Lord we are on this side of the Cross and know that He is reaching into our hearts saying He is always here. What the devil meant for our destruction, God has turned around to be the symbol and the means to eternal life. The proof is in the Resurrection. So stay tuned.