“The only answer in these modern times, as in all other times, is the blood of Christ. When our conscience rises up and condemns us, where will we turn? We turn to Christ. We turn to the suffering and death of Christ—the blood of Christ. This is the only cleansing agent in the universe that can give the conscience relief in life and peace in death.” 
― John Piper

There is no more beautiful and powerful story in the entire world than that of Almighty God choosing to humble Himself, come to the earth in the form of a man – a man who worked with hands, loved children, enjoyed real friendships, experienced the sting of betrayal by one who was in His inner circle, and then gave Himself up to suffer, bleed, and die for the sins of the people in this world.

This is one story, one message, one life worth meditating on for….forever.

My daughters and I have been reading Ann Voskamp’s devotional during this Lent season.  From Genesis onward, the story of God’s love and redemption of mankind is woven throughout Scripture, culminating here at the Cross of Christ.

Taking the time to pause and consider what Christ has endured for us has filled our hearts with thanksgiving and awe. Instead of rushing through the readings and saying a quick prayer, we have just been going slowly through this devotional.

Instead of being impatient with the girls when they interrupt me to ask questions while I read, I have been letting them interrupt as much as they want (saying “Excuse me, Mom?” is my only prerequisite 😉 It ended up taking us one solid hour to get through our two page devotional yesterday 🙂

It was AWESOME. And I really mean that. They wanted to know things like, “Momma, why would Judas do that?!” “Did the soldiers know who they were killing?!” “Did God the Father raise Jesus from the dead or did Jesus raise Himself? How would He do that?”

A friend of mine told me that studies have shown that out of all children,  4 year old girls have the most questions. I have a 3 and 5 year old girl, so you do the math. My main role right now is “Question Answerer.”

They have heard the story of the Cross hundreds of times (probably because it is always Chesed’s choice to read from our Storytime Bible at night). But this time I read them straight from Matthew’s account, which includes awesome facts like the curtain of the temple tearing in two from top to bottom, an earthquake and rocks splitting open, and (my personal favorite) tombs bursting open and many bodies of saints who had been dead were raised, appearing to many in the holy city after his resurrection.

We stopped at each point and thought and talked about it all and they found it all quite fascinating. But one thing really troubled them: When I read them that Christ cried out on the cross “My God, My God, Why have you forsaken me?”

Why, Grace wanted to know, would God the Father turn away from Jesus at His moment of greatest suffering?

I explained that at that moment Christ was taking upon Himself the sins of mankind – our sins – He became sin: “For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Corinthians 5:21).

It was for our sake that Christ endured rejection, persecution, torture, death, becoming sin (when He himself lived a perfect and blameless life) and worst – abandonment from His Father.

For our sake. People in this world may all define love in different ways. But there has never been love like this – ever.  His deep, enduring passion was to do His Father’s will and reconcile mankind to His Father.

He endured all of this that we may have a relationship with God. That we would be unbound from the shackles of sin and death, reborn as new creations in Christ Jesus. That we would confess our sins, receive His great grace, forsake the shame of our past, and step into the joy of His love – never to be forsaken or abandoned.

This is the beautiful message of the Passion of Christ – worth meditating on this Easter season and all year long.

Phot Credit: Claudio