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The Crucifixion: The Most Holy Place of Gospel History

April 7, 2023 by Christina

Today is Good Friday.  On this day we commemorate the crucifixion of Jesus, the Son of God.  The temptation to rush through the crucifixion is always there whenever I read the gospels.  The gory details are more than I can bear.  But we cannot move onto Easter Sunday — that is, we cannot celebrate the Resurrection until we know the crucifixion.

Below are a few paragraphs I’ve extracted from F.W. Krummacher’s sermon, “The Crucifixion.”  I’ve read it five times since Tuesday. Each time I am overwhelmed.  Enter into what Krummacher calls, “the Most Holy Place of Gospel History” where a dreadfully violent murder had to occur so that poor penitent souls, like you and me, could know peace with God.

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“Alas! Alas! what is it that now takes place on that bloody hill? Four barbarous men, inured to the most dreadful of all employments, approach the Holy One of Israel, and offer Him, first of all, a stupefying potion composed of wine and myrrh, as usual at executions. The Lord disdains the draught because He desires to submit to the will of His heavenly Father with full consciousness and to drink the last drop of the accursed cup. The executioners take the Lamb of God between them, and begin their horrid occupation by tearing, with rude hands, the clothes from off His body. There He stands, whose garment once was the light, and the stars of Heaven the fringe of His robe, covered only with the crimson of His blood, and divested of all that adorned Him, not only before men, but also in His character as Surety, before God.

After having unclothed the Lord, and left Him, by divine direction, only His crown of thorns, they lay Him down on the wood on which He is to bleed. Thus, without being aware of it, they bring about the moment predicted in Psalm 22, where we hear the Messiah saying: “Do not be far from me, for trouble is near; for there is none to help. Many bulls have compassed me about; strong bulls of Bashan have beset me round.” What a dying bed for the King of kings! My friends, as often as we repose on the downy cushions of divine peace, or blissfully assemble in social circles, singing hymns of hope, let us not forget that the cause of the happiness we enjoy is solely to be found in the fact that the Lord of glory once extended Himself on the fatal tree for us.

See His holy arms forcibly stretched out upon the cross—His feet laid upon each other. Thus Isaac once lay on the wood on Mount Moriah. But the voice that then called out of Heaven, saying: “Lay not your hand upon the lad!” is silent on Calvary. The executioners seize the hammer and nails. But who can bear to look upon what further occurs? The horrible nails from the forge of Hell, yet foreseen in the sanctuary of eternity, are placed on the hands and feet of the righteous Jesus, and the heavy strokes of the hammer fall. Do you hear the sound? They thunder on your heart, testifying in horrible language of your sin, and at the same time of the wrath of Almighty God.

Awake you that are asleep in sin, and rouse yourself likewise you who are lulling yourself in carnal security! How many proud and haughty heart has been broken into salutary repentance by those strokes! Why does not your heart also break? For know that you did aid in swinging those hammers; and that the most crying and impious act which the world ever committed is charged to your account.

See, the nails have penetrated through, and from both hands and feet gushes forth the blood of the Holy One. These nails have rent the rock of salvation for us, that it may pour forth the water of life; have torn the heavenly bush of balm that it may send forth its perfume. Yes, they have pierced the handwriting that was against us, and have nailed it to the tree; and by wounding the Just One have penetrated through the head of the old serpent. Let no one be deceived with respect to Him who was thus nailed to the cross! Those pierced hands bless more powerfully than while they moved freely and unfettered. They are the hands of a wonderful Architect who is building the frame of an eternal Church—yes, they are the hands of a Hero, which take from the strong man all his spoil. There is no help or salvation save in these hands; and these bleeding feet tread more powerfully than when no fetters restrained their steps. Nothing springs or blooms in the world, except beneath the prints of these feet.

The most dreadful deed is done, and the prophetic words of the Psalm: “They pierced my hands and my feet,” have received their fulfillment. The foot of the cross is then brought near to the hole dug for it. Powerful men seize the rope attached to the top of it, and begin to draw, and the cross, with its victim, elevates itself and rises to its height. Thus the earth rejects the Prince of life from its surface, and, as it seems, Heaven also refuses Him. But we will let the curtain drop over these horrors. Thank God! In that scene of suffering the Sun of grace rises over a sinful world, and the Lion of Judah ascends into the region of the spirits that have the power of the air in order, in a mysterious conflict, eternally to disarm them on our behalf.

Look what a spectacle now presents itself. The moment the cross is elevated to its height, a crimson stream falls from the wounds of the crucified Jesus. This is His legacy to His Church. We render Him thanks for such a bequest. It falls upon spiritual deserts, and they blossom as the rose. We sprinkle it upon the doorposts of our hearts, and are secure against destroyers and avenging angels. Where this rain falls, the gardens of God spring up, lilies bloom, and what was black becomes white in the purifying stream, and what was polluted becomes pure as the light of the sun. There is no possibility of flourishing without it, no growth nor verdure, but everywhere desolation, barrenness, and death.”

You can read the entire sermon here.

Yes, you are unworthy!

February 7, 2021 by Christina

I did not even consider myself worthy to come to you.

—Luke 7:7

You are much more sinful than you think you are, much more unworthy than you know yourself to be. Instead of attempting a soothing of your dark thoughts, I pray you believe that yours is a hopeless case apart from Christ. This disease is not skin deep. It lies in the source and fountain of your life and poisons your heart. The flames of hell must wrap themselves about you certainly unless Christ interposes to save you. You have not nor will you ever have merit of any sort. And more, you have no power to escape from your lost condition unaided by the Savior’s hand. No words can exaggerate your deplorable condition, and no feelings can ever represent your real state in colors too alarming. You are not worthy that Christ should come to you. You are not worthy to draw near to Christ.

But—and here is a glorious contrast—never let this for a single moment interfere with your full belief that he who is God but who took our nature, who suffered in our stead on the cross, who now rules in heaven is able and willing to do for you immeasurably more than all you ask or imagine. Your inability does not prevent the working of his power. Your unworthiness cannot put fetters to his bounty or limits to his grace. You may be an ill-deserving sinner, but that is no reason why he should not pardon you. Jesus Christ is able and willing to save those who come to God through him. Your emptiness does not affect his fullness. Your weakness does not alter his power. Your inability does not diminish his omnipotence. Your undeserving does not restrain his love.

Your troubled hearts, your sense of your unworthiness should drive you to Christ. You are unworthy, but “Christ died for the ungodly” (Rom. 5:6). He gave himself for our—what? Excellences and virtues? No, he “gave himself for our sins” (Gal. 1:4), according to the Scriptures. We read that he “died for sins … the righteous for the”—righteous? No, “the righteous for the unrighteous” (1 Peter 3:18), to bring us to God. Gospel pharmacy is for the sick; gospel bread is for the hungry; gospel fountains are open to the unclean; gospel water is given to the thirsty. Let your huge and painful wants impel you to fly to Jesus. Let the vast cravings of your insatiable spirit compel you to go to him. Your unworthiness should act as a wing to bear you to Christ, the sinner’s Savior.

—C. H. Spurgeon

 Diana Wallis, Take Heart: Daily Devotions with the Church’s Great Preachers (Grand Rapids, MI: Kregel Publications, 2001), 47.

An Easter Message

April 11, 2020 by Christina

It was now about the sixth hour, and there was darkness over the whole land until the ninth hour (Luke 23:44)

Three of the four synoptic gospels tell us that when Jesus was dying on the cross, a darkness came upon the land. If you were a reporter, attempting to corroborate this one aspect of Jesus’s death, you’d have no problem.  Everyone – young and old, male and female, rich or poor, believer and unbeliever, would tell you the same thing. It got dark. For three hours, starting at noon and ending at three o’clock, the sun stopped shining, and there wasn’t a single person who did not share that experience. No, it was not an eclipse. It was an act of God. Maybe his disciples called to mind Jesus’s words the night before when he told those who came to arrest him, “But this is your hour, and the power of darkness.” (Luke 22:53)

This was not the first time that the world experienced a supernatural darkness. Darkness, in both the Old and New Testament, is a symbol of God’s judgment. For example, darkness was one of the plagues in Egypt. Exodus 10:21-23 says:

Then the LORD said to Moses, “Stretch out your hand toward heaven, that there may be darkness over the land of Egypt, a darkness to be felt.” So Moses stretched out his hand toward heaven, and there was pitch darkness in all the land of Egypt three days. They did not see one another, nor did anyone rise from his place for three days, but all the people of Israel had light where they lived.

Darkness also occurs in the prophets as God’s judgment in the end time. Many times the darkness can be attributed to rain clouds, pestilence such as locusts, or smoke. For example, Ezekiel 32:7-8 says:

When I blot you out, I will cover the heavens and make their stars dark; I will cover the sun with a cloud,  and the moon shall not give its light. All the bright lights of heaven will I make dark over you, and put darkness on your land, declares the Lord God. 

Joel 2:2 says:

a day of darkness and gloom, a day of clouds and thick darkness! Like blackness there is spread upon the mountains a great and powerful people; their like has never been before, nor will be again after them through the years of all generations. 

On the night before his crucifixion, in the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus prayed to the Father. In his humanity, he was afraid. And his fear was realized when he cried on the cross in a loud voice, “Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani?”  “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Mark 15:34)

God abandoned Jesus on the cross. God had to turn his back on him because God is holy and He cannot look upon sin. Isaiah 59:2 says,

but your iniquities have made a separation between you and your God, and your sins have hidden his face from you so that he does not hear. 

Jesus became a sin offering and he bore the punishment for our sins. 2 Corinthians 5:21 says:

For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin so that in him we might become the righteousness of Christ.

During those three hours, Jesus experienced a personal separation from His Father. The darkness that came upon the land was more than a symbol. It was God the Father turning away from His only begotten Son. One commentator writes:

… this period of darkness was a period of divine activity; this period marks God’s turning His back on Him, and Jesus Christ’s terrible struggle and torment in the face of that rejection. He represented all that is sinful and vile while on the cross, and that must have brought unspeakable agony to His sinless soul, but surely the fact that God had to turn His back on Him was His greatest suffering, one we cannot start to comprehend. Sin has unimagined force, for it was sufficient to break the eternal bond between God the Father and God the Son. Thank the Father and Jesus for their mercy, for after our vile actions separated them humanity is truly unworthy of salvation. Yet Jesus loved us through all the consequences of our sin.[1]

Jesus faced the wrath of God so that we wouldn’t have to! He experienced the isolation and the separation that sin causes so that we wouldn’t have to! It should have been me hanging on that cross, feeling the full weight of my sin and shame — feeling the full brunt of His wrath and displeasure. It should have been me that God was forced to turn his back on. I should have been made to know the black darkness of the absence of God. But Jesus did it instead! Jesus faced the darkness so that I don’t have to!

And this is the glorious truth of Easter: Because Jesus experienced that darkness, we don’t have to!

But something else happened at Jesus’s death. The curtain of the temple was torn in two. Mark 15:38 says it was torn from “top to bottom” confirming that this, too, was an act of God. Whereas only the High Priest had the authority to enter into the presence of the Holy of Holies to make atonement for the sins of the people, Jesus, our new and eternal High Priest, (Hebrews 8:1) offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins. And now, as the author of Hebrews writes,

…we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain, that is, through his flesh, and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. (Hebrews 10:19-22)

The darkness brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic has covered the entire world. It is no longer business as usual. Things that we took for granted, that we presumed would just always be – those things no longer can be trusted. No one can tell us what tomorrow will look like. But today our confidence is rooted in something that can never be reversed or undone. John 19:30 says that before Jesus died, he cried, “It is finished”. No doubt some heard these words and thought them to be an admission of defeat. But oh, were they wrong! On the contrary, this was a cry of triumph! Jesus disarmed the powers of darkness and he put the prince of darkness to open shame (Colossians 2:15). “It is finished” is the ground of confidence for every saint in every church age!

I conclude with Romans 5:6-11:

For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die— but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God. For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life. More than that, we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.

Happy Easter!

[1] M. S. Mills, The Life of Christ: A Study Guide to the Gospel Record (Dallas, TX: 3E Ministries, 1999), Mt 27:45–Lk 23:45a.

Subway Cat

February 22, 2015 by Christina

Does this cat have attitude or what? Cattitude. 

subway cat

Image Credit: Ian Westcott
Click here to view license.

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