Recently I told my husband and my good friend Erica that of the trinity, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, I felt the farthest removed from Christ. I know this sounds odd, because they are three in one, but they are also different. While they all represent the same purpose and same love, they each have their own facets of the story. The structured and justice-seeking and detail-oriented Father I feel naturally drawn to. The Holy Spirit, revealing God’s words and plans and teachings to me I can feel and therefore experience. But a part of me feels distant and disconnected from Jesus. Realizing this, I began to ask myself why.
At first, I thought it was because given my personality, I felt far from the prospect of grace, and more specifically, extending it to myself. Maybe that’s true in part, but in my search for him and prayer to experience him like I never have before, I have found even greater reason to find distance between him and myself, and yet it’s drawn me impossibly and irrevocably closer.
From beginning to ending of Jesus’s life, he received the least. From being born in a stable, quietly and irreverently, because our world had no place for him, to dying a criminal’s cross, “counted among the rebels,” he consistently received nothing. And didn’t advocate for it—or for himself. Even his status in heaven with the Father, and as God himself, he gives this up “not consider[ing] equality with God something to be used to his own advantage.”
Last night I started a new book and it spoke directly to me. At the end of the first chapter, it encouraged me to read Isaiah 53 and Luke 19. It was a crazy coincidence, and then not a coincidence at all, that it prompted this, because this was the very next chapter intended for my quiet time in Isaiah. And moreover, it happened to be on the death of Jesus. Pointed out to me the night before Good Friday.
We know the crucifixion to be the greatest irony ever, the very act of the man and God we needed to deliver us from our sins, we delivered over to be killed because of our sins, but even the details are an outcry. Over and over, people bail out, lack courage, and ultimately lose sight of what is most important—what’s happening right there in front of them. You want to talk about living unaware in a historical time.
We’ll start with the religious leaders and Judas. In Luke 22, scripture tells us that Satan enters into Judas Iscariot who was a disciple but then turns to the leading priests to “discuss the best way to betray Jesus to them.” The bible says “they were delighted.” These same people who were teachers and examples of the religious law were so self-righteous in their own agendas they plotted with Satan himself to bring down God, their redeemer who would fall to fulfill the very laws they revered more than the Spirit who breathed them.
When the time comes for them to actually take Jesus into custody, one of his disciples is so outraged he cuts of the ear off of a man. Jesus puts a stop to the bloodshed immediately both figuratively and literally as he asks for no more but also touches the man’s ear to heal it—right before their eyes. We aren’t privy to their reaction or thoughts here, but I feel like they were so far past the acts of God in their questioning of his character and goodness that it didn’t matter.
Peter denies Christ three times (even after being forewarned that he would) out of fear of people. All the while giving up his relation to his precious friend and Savior, the bible paints such a vivid picture. While this was happening, he was warming himself by the fire of the people who were questioning this connection. It says “Peter stood with them, warming himself.” This image was so vivid it reminded me of the passage at the end of Isaiah 50. “..trust in the Lord and rely on your God. But watch out, you who live in your own light and warm yourselves by your own fires. This is the reward you will receive from me: You will soon fall down in great torment.” When the rooster crows, and realization dawns heavily on Peter, he leaves the courtyard and leaves this fleeting comfort “weeping bitterly.”
Pilate, not a Jew, is hinted at believing at least somewhat, that Jesus actually may be who he says he is. When he asks Jesus if he is indeed the king of the Jews, Jesus hints at the question of truth hiding in Pilate’s heart. He says “is this your own question, or did others tell you about me?” The bible says Pilate “retorts” which almost implies it’s said in a scoffing manner, perhaps even inward at the impossibility that he could partake of this insanity, “Am I a Jew?” In other words, this could not be so… could it? He tries to release him on a couple occasions, but fearing the mob more than God himself, he “washes his hands” of the conviction, and that’s exactly what he does isn’t it? He takes that bit of conviction that he felt and ignores it, washes himself of it, declaring he’s not guilty, but still doesn’t save Jesus and therefore is an accomplice. He makes a sign that becomes material for ridicule for those mocking the life of Jesus, but I don’t really think Pilate wrote it with that sentiment. He writes “Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews.” At the outrage that the sign didn’t imply that it was downright false, the leading priests demand that it be changed to “He SAID I am King of the Jews.” But Pilate, once again giving us reason to think he may actually buy into it, responds “No, what I have written, I have written.” And yet, with washing his hands of conviction, he also washes them of his personal responsibility. Jesus, taking up responsibility and his cross, washes him truly clean of condemnation.
In John 19, Jesus is finally hanging on the cross. To fulfill prophesy, he says he is thirsty. The soldiers, not bothering to find something better, lazily offer a taste of sour win form a jug that was just “sitting there.” Luke’s account says they do this in mocking. As soon as he tastes it, he says the famous words etched in our brains that come forth especially today. “It is finished.” What is finished? His life? His earthly ministry? His suffering? When Jesus was with his disciples one last time for the last supper, he gives them all wine, but doesn’t partake, because he says “For I will not drink wine again until the Kingdom of God has come.” So even of bitter, sour wine meant to ridicule and harm him, this one taste marks the finality. This taste marks the moment that the Kingdom of God is here. And then he bowed his head and gave up his Spirit—for us. For those who nailed him there, for those who mocked him, for those who gave sour wine to a dying man’s wishes. But you know what Jesus says in Scripture regarding his invitation to salvation? Isaiah 55: 1 “Is anyone thirsty? Come and drink—even if you have no money. Come, take your choice of wine or milk—it’s all free!” We give him our worst; he gives us his best. For free.
This same day was the day before Sabbath when all the Jews had to prepare so that they could properly observe the Sabbath from sundown to sundown. It was even more important because it was Passover. If you’re familiar with the story, you may remember that the soldiers went to break the legs of those who had been crucified to “hasten their deaths,” but perhaps you, like myself, did not realize it was at the request of the religious leaders because they did not want the bodies there, taking their sweet time to die, during their special feast. Jesus, already dead, was left in this one sense unbroken. They murdered him for being a rebel to the Jewish law, but he died to right them for rebelling against himself.
Here they were, so concerned over their precious rules and regulations of this law and their fear that they would be defiled and unable to observe it for their purposes. How do I know it’s for their own gain and not out of reverence for God? Because they’ve hastened to rid their hands of God himself to get there. They may have followed every single detail of their animal sacrifice in remembrance of God’s deliverance from Egypt’s hands, but the true lamb of God, perfectly unblemished and intended for ultimate deliverance, was slaughtered very unceremoniously and cast aside to get to their festival. You know how I know God wasn’t the center of their worship? Because he lay unmoving feet away left alone in a tomb. Through their blind ambition to keep the law, they became unknown means to fulfill it. And while they turned him over to death and left him behind for their self-preservation, he died to deliver them from death going ahead to provide eternal preservation.
Even Jesus’ believers were prone to this. Joseph of Arimathea, who the bible calls a “secret disciple” and Nicodemus who is described as “the man who had come to Jesus at night,” served Jesus silently by preparing his body for burial. But even in their earnest efforts, they still feared people and the sanctity of Jewish Passover more than the lamb himself. John 19:41-42 says “The place of crucifixion was near a garden, where there was a new tomb, never used before. And so, because it was the day of preparation for the Jewish Passover, and since the tomb was close at hand, they laid Jesus there.” I thought it was odd when I read in Isaiah 53:9 that he was “buried like a criminal; he was put in a rich man’s grave,” because it was so uncharacteristic for Jesus to receive the best of anything. But then when I read this in John, I realized it wasn’t that they were necessarily wanting the best for Jesus, it was the most convenient. Even the women, also observant of the law, held off on anointing his body with their ointments and spices they had prepared following his death, because they wouldn’t have time to finish before Sabbath begun so they obeyed the law and rested. However well intending, they failed to go to him and put their law first. Jesus, risen from the grave and bringing atonement, appeared to them first before any other person.
These accounts range from sad to disgusting, but what’s even sadder is that they also ring true in my own heart. He continues to give me his best, and I my worst. He gave up everything, never advocating for himself, so that he may point us to God and I do the very opposite by fighting for what’s mine. He came first as helpless babe giving up status while I seek to earn it. He lived a sinless life, completely justified, while I justify myself despite my sins. He came in deliverance even in death, dying as a rebel, interceding for me, a true rebel, so that I could have the right to live. He came not seeking equality with God but giving it up to rid me of my sins, I make myself my god not realizing I need ridding of my sins. He demoted himself, I promote myself. He lowered himself, I elevate my pride. And this, who Jesus is at his very essence, is what has kept me from feeling like I get him. Because I don’t. And for this very same reason, I have never felt so loved. Because despite my inadequacies, and because of my inadequacies, he came for me, ransomed me, and loves me still.
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