Good Friday, April 7, 2023 | 26 Days
Before we can begin to see the cross as something done for us (leading us to faith and worship), we have to see it as something done by us (leading us to repentance). Indeed, ‘only the man who is prepared to own his share in the guilt of the cross’, wrote Canon Peter Green, ‘may claim his share in its grace’.
__Stott, John. The Cross of Christ . InterVarsity Press. Kindle Edition.
Over the last few meditations we have reflected on the main characters that facilitated the crucifixion of Jesus Christ.
The Apostles described it as “handing over” Jesus to be crucified.
The chronology is easy to trace…
Stott summarized it well: First, Judas ‘handed him over’ to the priests (out of greed). Next, the priests ‘handed him over’ to Pilate (out of envy). Then Pilate ‘handed him over’ to the soldiers (out of cowardice), and they crucified him. (Who where just doing their job.)
Now before we move on…
The one thing we must not do is look at this in terms of a nonpartisan historian who is reviewing something that happened in the past and is doing a study of the main characters.
That would be (and I’m not being over dramatic here) fatal.
The writers of the New Testament are very clear on this…
What we must understand is that the main characters who contributed to the crucifixion of Jesus are representative…representative of all of us. You, me, us…we were there. The Cross is about us as much as them.
The ONE THING for today: The old hymn asks the question: “Were you there when they crucified my Lord?” The answer is, “Yes!”
Going forward, understanding what that means is the great mission of our countdown to Good Friday ’23
Photo by Leiada Krozjhen on Unsplash
