Good Friday’s Cross

Happy Good Friday my friends! And what a good day that Friday, centuries ago, was for us, when Jesus willingly laid down His life for our sins, for our salvation! Have you ever wondered… why a cross? Why did Jesus have to die on a cross? If He only had to die for sin, beheading would have been quicker. Any other of the multitude of ways Rome, or the Jews, that could have ended His life would have been less agonizing. But there is more to it than simply the shame, the embarrassment, and the physical agony the cross inflicted.

You probably recall that Pilate had tried Jesus and found no fault in him (Jn 18:38; 19:4, 6), but when he presented Jesus before the Jews they cried out for His crucifixion because they claimed He committed blasphemy for claiming to be the Son of God (Jn 19:7) and deserved death. But the required penalty for blasphemy was stoning, not crucifixion.

They knew this law, as evidenced by their previous attempts to stone Him for blasphemy (Jn 10:30-33). So why did they cry out for His crucifixion this time instead of stoning?

Satanic inspired hatred, and God’s plan! The Jews understood that to die suspended between heaven and earth was the worst curse as this meant forsaken and abandoned, by both heaven and earth. A person who died in that manner was under God’s curse! Please notice Deuteronomy 21:22-23 “If a man has committed a sin deserving of death, and he is put to death, and you hang him on a tree, … ²³ … for he who is hanged is accursed of God.” To the Jew’s thinking, crucifixion was another way of being hung on a tree (Acts 5:30). The Jewish leaders didn’t simply want Jesus dead, they wanted God’s curse to be on Him! They wanted Him to be unforgiven, forsaken and abandoned by God and men!

Let me back up. After Adam’s sin this world became cursed. God (Pre-incarnate Jesus) pronounced curses on the serpent, on childbearing, on this earth (Gen 3:14-19). When Cain sinned he was cursed (Gen 4:11). Anyone who sins (that would be everyone except Christ) becomes cursed (Gal 3:10). Truly, the cursed live in a cursed world.

But Christ came to “reverse the curse”. How? That’s where the cross comes in… Galatians 3:13 “Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us (for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree”)”

While the Jewish leaders wanted Jesus to be forever cursed, God wanted/planned for God to take the curse upon himself and become the curse to remove it from us and this world.
Jesus knew the plan. In the garden He recoiled from the repulsion of sin and its curse. Yet at His death, Jesus exclaimed “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?” (Mark 15:34). Forsaken by the Father because He took our sin, became our curse, He truly was the God forsaken God!

Inspired writting tells us that at those closing moments Jesus could not see “through the portals of the tomb”. He felt totally abandoned from the Father. He did not know if His sacrifice would be acceptable to the Father, sufficient to pay for the sin of the world, and remove the curse, or if He would be resurrected and reunited with the Father. But He still went through with the plan. He stayed true to the Father’s will. He loved the Father, and us, more than He loved His own life. He was willing to be eternally separated from the Father that we could be reunited to the Father. That is the faith of Jesus, the faith He would give His followers, the faith we must have in these last days!

Psalm 22 is a prophetic utterance of Jesus Christ’s crucifixion experience. 1 John 3:16 is a description of His love for us., as is John 3:16.
His love and grace is the power that transforms us.

May I ask you to consider doing something? Not just this Passover weekend, but every day as you contemplate the life of Christ and the love of God, remember how Jesus Christ did more than take our sins; He became a curse to save us!

Sincerely,
Pastor Mike