My Dear Friends,

Suppose we were to sit in an auditorium and witness a replay of all our sins before a church audience – sexual affairs, selfishness, anger, stealing, critical comments and behaviour as well as jealousy. Can you imagine the outcry, the raising of eyebrows, the pointing of fingers, the shameful dispositions and the mean attitude of others toward us?   But do you know that our Lord Jesus Christ experienced far worse? Holy scripture informs us that “He himself bore our sins in his body on the cross, so that free from sins, we might live for righteousness; by his wounds you have been healed.” I Peter 2:24)NRSV)

Jesus was exposed, humiliated and brutally murdered. Yes, he died for sins that he did not commit. His love and the love of the Father compelled him to go to the cross, and while he hung there he felt forsaken. He actually cried out “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Matt.27:46 LASB). Friends, can you imagine being forsaken by God?   St. Paul, in his Epistle to Timothy, used the same word “forsaken” to describe Demas: “for Demas, in love with this present world, has forsaken me…” (2:Tim. 4:10 LASB). Paul looked for Demas but he couldn’t find him, and on the Cross of Calvary, Jesus looked for God, the Father, and somehow could not find him. Does that mean that the Psalmist David was wrong when he wrote “I have never seen the ungodly forsaken…..” (Ps.37:25 LASB)? Surely not, for at that very moment Jesus was anything but righteous.

Seeing our Lord on the cross, reflects the condition of sinners – the liar, the cheater, the gossiper, the alcoholic, the porn addict, the child molester, the thief, the murderer and the prostitute. Are we ashamed to see the name of Jesus linked with such characters? Are we aware that we too are numbered among them? Well Jesus went beyond that. He put himself in our place, in a move that broke God’s heart and gave us the gift of eternal life. This, my brothers and sisters, is Good News: “God showed his great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners.” (Rom.5:8 LASB) God poured out his righteous judgement on Jesus his only Son. Consequently, when Jesus cried from the cross, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” he pleaded for our sake that we may never need to. There is no greater love than this, in that Jesus laid down his life for us his friends.(Jn.15:13). There was no other good enough. to pay the price of sin.                  He only could unlock the gate of heaven, and let us in. (CPWI 669 v.4)

                                   The Very Rev. Rudolph Smithen

 

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