If someone you really admired told you they had to die, how would you respond?
Read the Prophecy of Isaiah, Chapter 52 verse 13 – Chapter 53 verse 12.
This passage describes how Jesus Christ made it possible for us to become right with God, despite all our shortcomings and failings. It speaks, 800 years before Jesus Christ’s birth, of the Messiah who would come. Jesus Christ came both as a leader and a substitute for us all. Jesus acts as a substitute for us in two ways. His life, death and resurrection brought and opening into life because what he went through was both:
Punishment There is a punishment aspect to the Cross. Jesus experienced punishment that was a consequence of human sin. At the Cross He took on Himself the wrath of God against sin, representing and becoming the substitute for all humanity. What happens to Him at the Cross is God’s full and final response in dealing with human sin and its consequences.
Healing There is a healing aspect to the Cross. Christ acts as a poultice for humanity’s sin and sickness, drawing it into Himself and dealing with it. There is healing because the Cross is the climax of Christ’s obedience to God: purging, purifying and perfecting our humanity, bringing it into resurrection and eternal life.
The Cross is the outcome and the consequence of all that Jesus brings to humanity:
When Jesus came into Peter's house, he saw Peter's mother-in-law lying in bed with a fever. He touched her hand and the fever left her, and she got up and began to wait on him. When evening came, many who were demon-possessed were brought to him, and he drove out the spirits with a word and healed all the sick. This was to fulfill what was spoken through the prophet Isaiah: "He took up our infirmities and carried our diseases." (Gospel of Matthew, Chapter 8, verses 14-17).
It is participation in this activity, joining Him in the implications and outworking of His crucifixion, that Jesus calls us into. This is God’s way of bringing His presence, purpose and power into people’s lives. Jesus calls to us to come to Him through the Cross.
The way of the Cross cleanses. It bends our humanity into conformity to Christ. The whole of the Christian life is about an outworking of this.
Read the Gospel of Matthew, Chapter 26, verse 36 – Chapter 27 verse 7.
What do you make of this?
What do you make of this?
Christ’s Cross and Resurrection
• Is the outcome of a life that is attentive to and available to God, not synchronised with a world in rebellion to God
• Faces and deals with the fragmentation and suffering of the world, in God’s way and with God’s love
• Carries our humanity through to the purposes and future God has for us and all Creation
• Turns human failure into God’s triumph in and through the life of Jesus Christ, bringing us victory over
the devil, death and darkness
Why do you think God would do all this for you?
The Cross is the crux of the matter – it is the doorway into life in the love of God.
The Cross is the way that Jesus passes through for us, and that we pass through with Him.
