Season 1 Episode 12 - In this episode, I share an "ah-ha" moment I had recently regarding the crucifixion of Jesus, and the practical application of that realization to our challenging life moments.
"Reflect on This" is the podcast version of short email devotionals I send to my family and friends, where I am sharing the things I am learning about the ways and nature of God, through applying my study of the Scriptures to the world around me.
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Music credit:
Be Thou My Vision Interlude, by Sarah Bereza
Sarah.Bereza@gmail.com
As we approach Easter, I thought it timely to share an “ah-ha” moment I recently had, as I pondered the crucifixion of Christ.
I have never fully understood the interaction between Jesus and God during the crucifixion. I have heard many believers for whom I have great respect explain that Jesus took on the sin of all of us. In this selfless moment, He conquered the grave, and provided the path to eternal life with God. There is ample evidence in the Scriptures for this, such as:
- 1 Peter 2:24 NASB and He Himself bore our sins in His body on the cross, so that we might die to sin and live to righteousness; for by His wounds you were healed.
- Romans 5:8 NASB But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.
The explanation continues something like this:
During that time that Jesus was bearing the sins of the world, God had to turn away from Jesus, because God could not even look upon sin due to His holy and pure nature. They say that this is affirmed by Jesus quoting the first verse of King David’s Psalm 22 during His agony:
Psalms 22:1a NASB My God, my God, why have You forsaken me?
This is the part that I have wrestled with. Did God in fact turn His back upon Jesus and abandon Him during this agonizing moment? I wrestle with this concept, because from my study of the Scriptures I see that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit have eternally enjoyed rich, full, pure love and fellowship and enjoyment in their divine circle of love. We see this in the opening words of Genesis: “In the beginning, God [plural] created the heavens and earth” (Genesis 1:1) and “Let Us make man in Our image...” (Genesis 1:26). I see that this circle of love transcends all time – it exists from eternity past to eternity future, without interruption. That is part of the amazement associated with God inviting us into this divine circle of love. God didn’t have to do this, because He was perfectly content without us. But He wanted to! He wanted to expand His circle of love to include us, simply out of love.
I recently heard a pastor share an insight into the interaction of God and Jesus during the crucifixion. He said that in that moment, Jesus was in fact experiencing the feeling of abandonment by God, as He was experiencing the weight of all of our collective sin. God had not actually abandoned Him.
The Bible says very clearly that:
Hebrews 4:15 NASB For we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but One who has been tempted in all things as we are, yet without sin.
As I pondered this verse, I had an “ah ha!” moment. I realized that Jesus was experiencing the temptations that we all face: in moments of suffering, we are tempted to not only feel that God has ignored or abandoned us, but also tempted to act upon that feeling -- by cursing God, or becoming bitter, or lashing out at others, or losing our trust in Him, or falling into any of a number of sinful behaviors (such as seeking comfort through addictive or rebellious behaviors, etc.).
In that moment, Jesus was “tempted in all things as we are, yet without sin.” He did not sin by removing Himself from that agonizing moment (even though He was fully divine and therefore had the power to do so). He did not sin by cursing God or acting upon that feeling of abandonment in any way. Instead, He submitted Himself to this agony and retained His status as the sinless, spotless Lamb of God – the perfect, pure sacrifice for our sin!
This was such a revelation to me. This divine circle of love and fellowship among the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit was never broken by even a moment of abandonment. I can see now that God did not abandon Jesus, but rather agonized for His Son during the crucifixion, in a similar way to how we as earthly parents agonize over a medical procedure for our child that we know will be painful for them short-term, but beneficial and necessary for their ultimate good. We don’t abandon our children in those moments. And neither does God. The Father, Son and the Holy Spirit all knew that this agonizing moment on the cross was hard but necessary to expand the circle of love to include us!
1 John 3:1a NASB See how great a love the Father has bestowed on us, that we would be called children of God; and such we are!
So, what is a lesson for us in this? When we are suffering, and are feeling ignored or abandoned (by God or by people), we are to choose to continue looking toward our Father for comfort, instead of choosing to act upon our feeling of abandonment. We are to remember God’s faithfulness to us in the past, and look forward to the comfort He will bring during the suffering, as well as the blessing He will bring on the other side of the suffering.
2 Corinthians 4:16-17 AMPC Therefore we do not become discouraged (utterly spiritless, exhausted, and wearied out through fear). Though our outer man is [progressively] decaying and wasting away, yet our inner self is being [progressively] renewed day after day. (17) For our light, momentary affliction (this slight distress of the passing hour) is ever more and more abundantly preparing and producing and achieving for us an everlasting weight of glory [beyond all measure, excessively surpassing all comparisons and all calculations, a vast and transcendent glory and blessedness never to cease!],
Today, I encourage you to “Reflect on This.”