Lenten Rhythms: For You He Died
Image by Curdin on Unsplash
My last post, War & Peace, turned our focus turned to the dark side of humankind. I found it difficult yet necessary to write and I can imagine it may have been difficult to read, to metabolize, to accept as truth.
Yet, our rebellion against God, at the very heart of Lent, reveals the heart of God.
What I hope to convey here is that yes, Jesus, the perfect Lamb of God, bore both the full weight of the world’s sin in his body on the cross and its cascading consequences.
He knows the anguish of grief…
He experienced sorrow…loneliness…
He endured humiliation…rejection…shame…
He bore the brunt of hatred…oppression…injustice…
He was despised…mocked…beaten…spit upon…buried with the wicked…
Just today, I felt the frustration of my own brokenness. I spent a good part of the day in a sea of a familiar self-centeredness. And then I remembered. Jesus understands and died to set me free.
Peter was the first of the disciples to recognize Jesus as the Messiah, the Son of the living God, the first to declare his undying loyalty, and the only one to brazenly deny knowing him.
Three times.
As the third denial tumbled from his lips, Peter realized his betrayal and wept.…
I’ve always taken comfort from Peter’s eager and at times thoughtless, almost reckless declarations and a great deal of comfort from Jesus’s love for him that knew no bounds. Peter pens the following words decades after that fateful night that changed everything for Peter and for you, for me, and the whole.wide.world.
The life of Jesus is the kind of life you’ve been invited into, the kind of life Christ lived. He suffered everything that came his way so you would know that it could be done, and also know how to do it, step-by-step.
He never did one thing wrong,
Not once said anything amiss.They called him every name in the book and he said nothing back. He suffered in silence, content to let God set things right. He used his servant body to carry our sins to the Cross so we could be rid of sin, free to live the right way. His wounds became your healing. You were lost sheep with no idea who you were or where you were going. Now you’re named and kept for good by the Shepherd of your souls (1 Peter 2:21–25)
He knows the cascading effect of sin in your life—no matter how dark, irritating, mundane, or crazy—and loves you.
Let me encourage you today—if you do not yet know Jesus, open your hands and your heart and accept the embrace of his love and the gift of his forgiveness and grace.
