Tuesday, March 4, 2014
1 John 3:16a This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us.
JESUS CHRIST DIED FOR US
When people think of Christ's passion, they often think first of the physical suffering He endured. A Good Friday hymn sings, "How art Thou pale with anguish, With sore abuse and scorn! How doth Thy visage languish That once was bright as morn!" Film versions of the crucifixion are always sure to make much of the nails being driven into Jesus' hands and the crown of thorns being roughly pressed onto His brow.
The torment Jesus' body felt was real, it was severe, and it happened as Scripture tells us it happened. Yet we notice that while the Bible does not ignore the Lord's physical sufferings, it also does not dwell on those aspects of the crucifixion. Jesus did not seek to dwell on them either. When certain women broke into tears upon seeing His misery, He told them not to cry for Him. He understood that the greater suffering at Calvary would be the torment He would undergo on account of mankind's sin. When He cried from the cross that His Father had forsaken Him, the whip and the nails suddenly paled in comparison. When He was being punished in the place of every man, woman, and child in the world -- that was suffering truly worth beholding.
Jesus didn't want the people's pity, He wanted them to repent and trust that He was laying down His life in their place.
"How for man Thou diedst, O God" -- in the midst of His bonds and stripes and wretchedness, let this always be clearly seen!
Make me see Thy great distress,
Anguish, and affliction,
Bonds and stripes and wretchedness
And Thy crucifixion;
Make me see how scourge and rod,
Spear and nails, did wound Thee.
How for man Thou diedst, O God,
Who with thorns had crowned Thee.
(The Lutheran Hymnal, 140:2)
