Love At The Cross

“I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me” (Gal. 2:20).

Toward the end of the week, Jesus celebrates the Passover with his disciples. Two days before this, Jesus tells his disciples for the third time that he would be handed over to be crucified (Matt. 26:1). A woman with an alabaster flask of very expensive ointment takes her ointment and pours it over his head to anoint his body for burial (Matt. 26:6-13). Jesus tells his disciples during the Passover meal that one of them would betray him. During this same meal he blesses the bread of the Passover, breaks it and says to the disciples, “Take, eat; this is my body.” He takes the cup of wine, saying, “Drink of it, all of you, for this is the blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins” (Matt. 26:20-28). 

He and the disciples then go out to the Mount of Olives and to a place called Gethsemane (Matt. 26:30, 36). What we find as our Savior prays in the Garden of Gethsemane is the same thing we saw in our first reflection. He will not be deterred from completing his mission. The shift has begun to take place. The crowds praising him are gone and he prepares the disciples the reality that they will desert him too. “You will all fall away because of me this night,” is the sober message (Matt. 26:31). An essential aspect of his mission is that he will glorify the Father by dying, and by dying alone.

You’ve read Peter’s words before, haven’t you? “Though they all fall away because of you, I will never fall away” (Matt. 26:33). What would you have said had you been there? Would you have joined the chorus with Peter and the disciples of denying your denial? “We will never deny you.” I think that I would have protested my denial right along with them. 

Here is the truth. Jesus suffered the gruesome scourging of the Roman whip, the crown of thorns on his head, the excruciating pain of being nailed to a wooden cross, and the shame of hanging naked. While he did it alone, he did it with you and I in mind. For the joy set before him he endured the cross, despising the shame (Heb. 12:2). He tasted death for us to bring us to glory (Heb. 2:9-10).

How do we respond to that this week, today, now? Paul helps us. He refuses to live for the approval of people (Gal. 1:10). His life is governed by the beauty that in the grotesque crucifixion of Christ is his own crucifixion. The cross didn’t only change the world. It changed him. He is more alive now than he was before faith in Jesus. He will tell the Galatians in chapter 3 that it was before their eyes that Jesus was publicly portrayed as crucified (Gal. 3:1). When you see the cross, do you have eyes to see the immeasurable love of the Son of God? “I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me.” 

My second invitation to us this week is twofold. I invite us to bask anew in the love of God that sent the Son of God to the cross for us. I invite us to examine our hearts for ways that we are refusing to believe God’s love for us.

A prayer: “Lord, help me to rejoice in and believe your love for me. Deliver me from seeking to find my joy in lesser loves.”