His mother is there. At this point Jesus is not recognizable. His mother knows it her son and her Savior. The sights before her pierced her soul. "And a sword will pierce your own soul-that the thoughts of many hearts may be revealed." Luke 2:35 This was a mother seeing her child come to His death at the hands of a world that refused to accept Him. This wasn't an easy picture for this mother. One she would never forget. But yet she knew before hand. Nothing could have prepared her for what she would witness.
So, here I am today at the cross. The message I want to share is the sin that Jesus beheld. He was perfect. Tempted, but never sinned. Upon the cross He held my sin. The sins of my past, present, and future. I cannot even comprehend that love. As I look back on my life the sin my life has beheld makes me sick. One man's sin would have been great to hold, but what's even greater and even more loving is that He not only took upon my sin, but the sins of every man and woman on this entire earth. Let that sink into your heart and stay there with me for a while. Every sin was upon Him at once. This is why the Father could not look upon Him, His only Son. The Father cannot look upon evil. And there was His Son filled with the sins of this world, giving up Himself so that we could find life eternal. That isn't something to hold lightly. The cross isn't a place just to spend a bit of time and leave feeling gratitude. It's a place to be broken before our Lord. He experienced the horrors of this world. He seen them before His own eyes. He was willing to not have the cup pass Him, but to drink it and be the Lamb that saved the world. His sacrifice gives us life. Don't miss the magnitude of His love.
Don't for a moment think that another's sin is greater than your own. Friends, our sin is sin. My sin covered my Savior and that breaks my heart. He gave His unconditional love for the world. A world who still refuses Him, but a world He remains to love.
All of us. All of our sins. The murderer, the rapist, the adulterer, the homosexual, the thief, the gossip, the judge and jury, we are all there. Sin is sin and it's all ugly. Shouldn't this change our lives? Shouldn't it change our walk and how we relate to others? Knowing the price of our life was Christ's life, isn't that enough?
We cannot reach Jesus without going to the cross. In His death He gave me life. Not just a life on this earth, but far greater. A life eternal if I accept Him, believe that He died for me and rose again on the third day. Yes, if I accept Jesus as my Savior and ask Him to forgive me of my sins it is then at that moment I become a child of the King, His adopted daughter, an heir to the King of kings, Lord of lords.
Spending time at the cross changes everything doesn't it? Doesn't it help us see that at the cross we are all on equal ground? There is no greater or lesser in us. It's the heart that matters. We either accept Him as Savior or we don't. But we are not going to get to heaven without first visiting the cross and spending time there.
"For God loved the world in this way: He gave His One and Only Son, so that everyone who believes in Him will not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send His Son into the world that He might condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through Him." John 3:16-17
