Holy Week Devotionalနမူနာ

Each year, I find myself wondering if it will ever get easier to read the stories of Christ’s last hours. The opposite feels true. Another year has passed in which God has shown himself to be faithful- to be the very God who would be revealed by the Cross. Particularly when we face the horrors of this world and tread the valley of the shadow of death, God captures our hearts more fully as he builds more monuments of grace in our journey toward Christlikeness. As the living God becomes all the more precious to you, the darkness of the Cross gets deeper still. 

If we see the Cross as only punishment and wrath, we have misunderstood. The gospel doesn’t tell us that “God so hated the world that he gave his only begotten Son.” It certainly doesn’t say “God hated his Son so that somehow he could love awful, wretched people like us.” The Cross is shocking because it is the most visible demonstration of God’s love and faithfulness and mercy. 

As Christ said before, “[F]or this purpose I have come to this hour. Father, glorify your name” and the Father spoke from heaven and promised, “I have glorified it, and I will glorify it again.” As we saw Wednesday, Jesus answered, “This voice has come for your sake, not mine. Now is the judgment of this world; now will the ruler of this world be cast out. And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself” (John 12:27-32 ESV). The Cross is Christ’s revolution against the devil by destroying both sin and the power of death by taking it upon his incorruptible nature. He is lifted up as the new tree of life, planted where all the powers of hell and darkness gathered in violence against him. 

To worldly eyes, the Cross is nothing other than a monument to the ancient serpent who now killed the last Adam even as he seduced the first. Without eyes to see, we might be tempted to ask, “Who is like the beast, and who can fight against it?” (Rev. 13:4 ESV). But when God is present, what appears to be powerful is actually powerless, and what appears to be weak is truly invincible. 

While the Cross was the world’s greatest evil, it reveals Christ looking at his people and having “compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd” (Matt. 9:36 ESV). While the Pharisees and Romans and criminals mocked him, the Cross was the place where Jesus says, “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you... [l]et not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid” (John 14:27 ESV). To the sound of the weeping women gathered for his dark vigil, the Cross was Jesus who “having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end” (John 13:1 ESV). 

Christ’s kingdom is not of this world because in his kingdom, even we who are guilty can cry out, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.” Because he bore each and every sin and faced our every darkness, he can now say, “[Y]ou will be with me in paradise.” He goes to the Cross so that it might become true for all people - every tribe and tongue - that in Christ we are “a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession” who now live to “proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light” (1 Pet. 2:9 ESV).

This Good Friday, may you know that the Cross is the surest evidence that God’s love for you can never be defeated. Today, may you worship Christ as the angels of heaven did that day, “And they sang a new song, saying, ‘Worthy are you [for] you were slain, and by your blood you ransomed people for God from every tribe and language and people and nation, and you have made them a kingdom and priests to our God, and they shall reign on the earth… Worthy is the Lamb who was slain, to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing… To him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb be blessing and honor and glory and might forever and ever!’” (Rev. 5:9-13 ESV).