The Message of the Cross

 

"For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life." 

The message of the cross. We as Christians know this message and live it every day, but so often I know I am guilty of becoming used to it or not thinking of the full purport of the words: "Jesus died on the cross for your sins." What does death by crucifixion look like? How much agony did our Lord go through? There is an episode of a Christian podcast that I listen to every Good Friday that never gets old. Todd Friel of Wretched Radio goes into a deep look at death by crucifixion and all our Lord went through. It is very powerful and always leaves me so amazed, humbled, and in wonder at Jesus' love for us that led Him to go to the cross. I wanted to share a few excerpts from the episode and I highly encourage you to click on this link(The Day God Poured Out His Anger) and listen to the whole thing. 

"Crucifixion was a repugnant, demeaning form of execution for the rabble of society. The idea that anybody who died on the cross was in any sense an exceptional, elevated, and noble person was absurd. The authorities reserved the cross for rebellious slaves and conquered people and notorious robbers and assassins. The Roman Empire's policy on crucifixion led them to view any crucified person as absolutely contemptible....the lowest of the low. Your God did that for you. He became the scum of the earth." 

"He is despised and rejected by men, a Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. And we hid, as it were, our faces from Him; He was despised, and we did not esteem Him. Surely He has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed Him stricken, smitten by God and afflicted." -Isaiah 53:3-4

"But I am a worm and no man; a reproach of men and despised by the people." -Psalm 22:6

"The procedure of crucifixion may be summarized as follows: The patibulum(cross bar of the cross) was put on the ground and the victim was laid on it. Nails about 7 inches long and with a diameter of 1 centimeter were driven into the wrists...about the vicinity of the median nerve causing shocks of pain to radiate through the arm. Standing at the crucifixion sites would be upright posts, called stipes, standing about 7 feet high. In the center of the stipes was a crude seat, called a sedile or sedulum, which served a support for the victim. The patibulum was then lifted on to the stipes. The feet were then nailed to the stipes. To allow for this, the knees had to be bent and rotated laterally, being left in a very uncomfortable position.

Having suffered from the beatings and flogging, Jesus suffered from severe hypovolemia from the loss of blood. When the cross was erected upright, there was tremendous strain put on the wrists, arms, and shoulders, resulting in a dislocation of the shoulder and elbow joints. The arms, being held up and outward, held the rib cage in a fixed and inspiratory position which made it extremely difficult to exhale, and impossible to take a full breath."

"I am poured out like water, and all My bones are out of joint; My heart is like wax; it has melted within Me. My strength is dried up like a potsherd, and My tongue clings to My jaws. You have brought Me to the dust of death." -Psalm 22:14-15

"Just as many were astonished at you, so His visage was marred more than any man, and His form more than the sons of men." -Isaiah 52:14

"It is a slow, awful, tortuous, excruciating, unimaginable death. So there hangs our Jesus, our God, having been beaten, punched, scourged, flogged, spat upon, His back shredded, hanging there with nails through His hands and feet, struggling for breath...and Isaiah 53 tells us it pleased God to do that because God hates sin. Yet He proved His love for us and died for us while we were yet sinners." 

"Yet it pleased the LORD to bruise Him; He has put Him to grief.

But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement for our peace was laid upon Him, and by His stripes we are healed." -Isaiah 52:10, 5

How great a wonder that the God of the universe would die an awful death as this for awful sinners like you and I! Truly, how marvelous, how wonderful is our Savior's love for us! The cross is the only way to Jesus. You can try finding eternal life your own way or even through your good works but the only thing that will save you is His blood. By humbling yourself and repenting and believing on His sacrifice on the cross for you, you will receive His complete forgiveness of your sin. "That if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved." (Romans 10:9) What a Savior!

(Song: It's About The Cross)

"It's not all about the good things in this life I've done, it's not all about the treasures or the trophies I have won, it's not about the righteousness that I find within, it's all about His precious blood that saves me from my sin.

It's about the cross, it's about my sin, it's about how Jesus came to be born once so that we could be born again, It's about God's love nailed to a tree, it's about how every drop of blood that flowed from Him when it should have been me, it's about the stone that was rolled away, so that you and I could have real life some day, 

IT'S ABOUT THE CROSS!

~Grace