Read: Isaiah 52:13-53:12; John 18:1-19:42
I’m an optimistic person. I usually can find a silver lining in even the worst of situations. It isn’t hard for me to see hard times as opportunities and to believe that God truly does work all things for our good (Romans 8:28).
As a result, I tend to want to skip Lent and Good Friday and simply focus on the resurrection. Yes, Jesus suffered, and I will too since I’m his follower. Yes, Jesus died on the cross, and I too must take up my cross and follow him. But the resurrection! That changes everything! Right?
It absolutely does. Yet, there is no “Christ is risen” without first “Christ has died.” The horror of Good Friday is part of what makes the empty tomb so glorious. Jesus faced death and conquered it. Jesus didn’t shy away from the cross. He asked that the cup be taken from him in the garden, yet did God’s will when the answer was, “No.”
Jesus chose the cross. He willingly took our place enduring the mocking, the beating, the scorn, the pain, the humiliation, and the suffering. Hebrews tells us that, “for the joy that was set before him [he] endured the cross, despising the shame (Hebrews 12:2).
Jesus chose the cross out of obedience to the Father. He chose it out of love for you and me. He chose it to make a way for broken, sinful people to be restored to the life they’d been designed for. He died so we wouldn’t have to…so we could be with him for all eternity.
As I reflect on the cross and Jesus’ willingness to endure it for my sake, I think also of his call to his followers in Matthew 16, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. 25 For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. 26 For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul? Or what shall a man give in return for his soul?
I am called to take up my cross and die; to lose my life for Jesus’ sake. In dying, I live. In surrender and submission to God’s will and God’s way, I find freedom. Though I may suffer in this life – suffer because this is a fallen world filled with sickness and the consequences of sinful choices (mine and others) or suffer because I’ve chosen to follow Jesus and such a life is not popular in a world given to self – I have the hope that my suffering is not in vain. It’s a part of the process of being made into Christ’s image. It’s part of the process of God developing in me perseverance and holiness.
And so, though my flesh wants to fast forward to the empty tomb and the joy of resurrection, I pause at Calvary. I take time to remember “what is the breadth and length and height and depth, 19 and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that [I] may be filled with all the fullness of God (Ephesians 3:18b-19). I remember John’s words that God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. 17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. I remember these things and I pause to give thanks; to look back on the season of Lent and all the ways God has met me in my reflection and “suffering”; to give thanks for the ways he has realigned my heart and filled me with hope; and for the truth that it’s Friday, but Sunday’s coming!
For reflection:
- If you’ve taken time during Lent to enter into Christ’s suffering through giving something up, reflect on how that you’ve experienced that. Has it been “suffering”? Has it been easy? What are lessons you’ve learned in the process? How has Jesus met you?
- Jesus most profoundly demonstrates his incredibly love for us in dying the death we deserved. What are ways you’ve experienced his love during Lent? How does the cross communicate love to you?
Where has God “realigned” your heart this Lenten season? Give thanks for his gracious work in your life.