The Gift

We often associate gifts with Christmas, but not very often with Easter. And yet, for Christians, Easter is where we see the gift the was given at Christmas come to its fulfilment as Jesus goes to cross, dies and then rises again.

Here's a great little video by my former employers.

Complete trust in the darkest moment in all of history

Much has been written about Jesus words from the cross. There are 7 different sayings recorded in the 4 gospel accounts in the Bible. All of them are significant. 

Great words of grace:

“Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing." Luke 23:34

Beautiful words of care.

“Woman,[a] here is your son,” and to the disciple, “Here is your mother." John 19:26-27

Words in fulfilment of Scripture, which are stunning considering Jesus offered living water to those who would come to Him.

“I am thirsty.” John 19:28

Wonderful words of certain hope to one of the thieves who hung beside Him.

“Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in paradise.” Luke 23:43

The words that signalled the completion of the plan that He and has Father made before the beginning of time, achieving salvation for all who believe.

“It is finished.” John 19:30

Words that showed He was in control, the He laid down His life, and that He chose to be obedient to death, even death on a cross.

“Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.” Luke 23:46

But the one I want to mention briefly is possibly the most famous.

“Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani?” (which means “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”). Mark 15:34

But what is it in essence? 

A cry of abandonment? 

A cry of despair? 

A cry of fear? 

A cry of complete trust?

The words are a direct quote from Psalm 22:1. The psalmist is experiencing an horrendous situation in which he feels he has been forgotten, rejected and abandoned by God. 

This feeling is very real. From his view things seem hopeless.

And yet if we read the whole Psalm, the writer goes on to express trust in God despite feeling forsaken. The writer knows Gods character, not just in some intellectual way, but in a real experiential way too and he knows God is faithful to His people. The cry is genuine. The feeling is real. But it is not one of cessation of trust in God.

Some have suggested that Jesus' quoting of this shows that in that moment on the cross the eternal Son ceased to trust His eternal Father, whom He has been in perfect relationship with forever. 

Or even that this was purely the cry of a man, Jesus ceased to be the Son of God at this point.

I think this is dangerous and incorrect when we consider the Psalm in context. 

Jesus, on the cross, models for us complete trust in the darkest moment of His life and the darkest moment in history. Jesus' experience on the cross is beyond anything we can imagine.

Jesus experiences something He's never known before in relationship His Father because He becomes sin for those who trust Him. And yet, Jesus still trusts His Father.

When we read those words we can be truly comforted. 

Those words show us we can trust our Father when absolutely everything in the world is against us, when all around is dark, when we feel alone and overwhelmed. Why? Because He loves us and always has what is best for us. 

Swapsies

Did you ever do/play swapsies at school?

In my days in the playground it was Merlin Premier League stickers. I'd take a whole wad of my doubles in my trouser pocket and, every break time, try and get the stickers I needed from mates by swapping the ones I had loads of, for those really rare ones, or ones I just hadn't manage to get in all of the packets I'd bought from the newsagents with my pocket money.

I remember one guy always trying to get rid of David Lee who was one of the Chelsea squad at the time. He must have had him 10 times over. He was desperate for someone to take his David Lee sticker and give him one he wanted.

Today, as Christians, we celebrate the ultimate swapsie, if that's not too flippant. Good Friday is good because Jesus swapped us all that He had for all that we had. Theologians have called it "The Great Exchange" but in the language of the playground it could be "The Best Swapsie Ever". Here's a few things that Jesus swapped us for:

• Righteousness for Sin - In 2 Corinthians 5:21 we read that Jesus became sin for us that we might be the righteousness of God. All of our evil thoughts, actions and attitudes were owned by Jesus on the cross and in return we got His perfect record, His righteousness. Jesus died once for all, "the righteous for the unrighteous" (1 Peter 3:18).

• Innocence for Guilt - As the crowds were crying out for Jesus to be crucified, Pilate gave them the choice of one prisoner to be released. The options were Jesus or Barabbas, a murderer and insurrectionist, a menace to society (Mark 15:6-15). The crowd choice the guilty one and left the innocent one to die. At the cross Jesus show that he takes out guilt and makes us innocent. We are like Barabbas, we stand in his shoes, declared innocent and released.

• Blessing for Curse - The Bible says "cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree" (Gal 3:13 citing Deut 21:23). As Jesus hung there on the cross He became a curse, He took our curse, so that we might enjoy "every spiritual blessing" (Ephesians 1:3) by being found in Him. 

• Adoption for Alienation - Jesus, the Son of God, experienced something on the cross that He has never experienced before. For the first time ever, since eternity past, God the Son was forsaken by God the Father. He went through that so that we might not be alienated from God forever but so we can be His children. Children not born of natural decent or human decision, but born of God (John 1:12-13). 1 John 3:1 puts it like this, "See what kind of love the Father has given to us, the we should be called children of God; and so we are." 

• Life for Death - Jesus died upon the cross so that we do not have to die and face eternity without God. He died so that we might live and live life in all it's fulness (John 10:10). We enjoy relationship with God now and forever.

Those are snapshots worth meditating further upon, today and for the rest of your life. There is so much more that could be said too, but for now remember that Jesus, the eternal Son of the Father, went to the cross so that you and I could become sons and daughters, co-heirs with Him.