Day 29: Matthew 27
MY SACRIFICE (26:57 – 27:64)
I have no stupid stories to talk about for these verses. I have no poor attempts at humour to open this day up. These verses are simply too big, too raw. In one sense, these are some of the greatest verses written in the Bible, showing the greatness of God's love, showing the heart of the One who would go through all of this for us. In another sense, these are verses that make me bow my head in shame. As I look at the treatment of Jesus, the treatment he receives is uncomfortable to read.
One of the overriding feelings I get as I read this is an overriding sense of injustice, of how unfair all of this is. I read verses 67-68 and I get angry at humanity, of how we mock God at the time of his greatest act of love. I read verse 69-75 and hate that one of the main leaders of the church denies Jesus just as he is giving his life for all of mankind. I read verses 11-26 and wonder why we would be so stupid to request a criminal to be released above the only sinless man who ever lived. I read verses 27-31 and verses 39-44 and am stunned by the disgusting abuse that takes place.
As we read these verses, we need to take our time on them. We need to be upset by the mocking, the abuse, and the hatred that Jesus took. We also need to love his reaction. When the people he came to save spat in his face, he said nothing. When the people he loved knelt before him in fake worship, he said nothing. When people he was dying for jeered him and told him to come off the cross, he said nothing.
These verses make me wonder about how God felt. These things that seem unjust and painful to me must have been like a giant tear through his heart. As the Father watched the Son go through this, I can't grasp how he could still have loved us. As the one he sent to show us the heart of God is abused and beaten, I don't get how God doesn't just end everything there and decide that we're not worth it. As mankind pours out hatred on the Son of God, as the leaders of the church to come are scattered and afraid, this is probably as dark a time as there has ever been on earth.
Yet through it all, God's love never gives up on us. Somehow God doesn't just decide that we're not worth it. God watches the most painful things, and knows that this is how much His people are worth to Him. In the midst of the ultimate pain, God makes the greatest declaration of our value that will ever be made.
As Jesus hung on the cross, one of the final acts in the greatest love story ever told is coming to an end. Jesus is nailed to a cross, separated from the Father, with all of our sin and shame heaped upon him. There’s a story about a Chinese Christian who was getting baptised and was asked if she affirmed that when Jesus died on the cross, he had no sin. “No”, she disagreed, “He had mine”.
That’s true. Jesus was indeed sinless as he lived, but as we see him on the cross, we must acknowledge that it was our sin that put him there. Our selfish living had taken us away from God and Jesus was paying the ultimate price so that we could return.
The words I write can never do this chapter justice. Nothing I will ever say or write can. A few times in these devotionals we have talked about God's grace being outrageous. Right here, we see why it is so. In this chapter there is something so unjust, and yet so beautiful. There is something so painful, and yet so loving. This is a chapter that should stir up emotions in us as we try to grasp the size of what we are reading.
Let us read these verses slowly and carefully, taking in just what it means. As we read these words, let's allow ourselves to be humbled, realising just how great God is, and try to comprehend just a glimpse of what His love for us cost.
As we do this, I pray that we will find ourselves face down in worship. We can know all about the cross and what Jesus has done for us, but as we look at the reality in these verses, I hope that something in our hearts cries out in praise.
only one day left of our daily del #withdrawlsymptoms
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