Hope Cocooned In Love

They had watched their Healer be nailed to a cross. Their wise Teacher now hung between criminals. How is it that the Author of Life now was subject to death? And the One whose edge of His garment healed a lady with an issue of blood, now bled profusely? Why did the Author of Living Water now state, “I thirst?” And why did he say, “It is finished!” This can’t be over! It can’t end this way... His faithful followers were confused and devastated! Their hope had been dashed against jagged rocks. Tears flowed until they could flow no more. He was dead. They watched it happen.

What they didn’t fully grasp at that moment in time was that their own sin was being put to death. It was for them that He suffered and bled and died. If only they had fully understood that the saddest day in history was about to birth the greatest day in history - the redemption of mankind!

This is not a distant theology, but the most personal of all truths in all of history. Place the words “me” in this story and you will recognize the depths of His personal love for you. Jesus came to earth with the sole purpose of redeeming ‘me’ to Himself so ‘I’ could spend eternity with Him. The heavy grief that made Him cry in the garden of Gethsemane, was the weight of ‘my’ sin. Not just everyone else’s, but mine. For ‘me’ He endured the whippings and floggings. “By His stripes ‘I’ am healed.”  It was ‘my’ sins that nailed Him to the cross, not pieces of metal.

When he uttered the words, “It is finished” He was referring to the penalty of my sin - it had been paid in full. You see, the cross is deeply personal! Hope wasn’t lost but cocooned in sacrificial love.

Dear friends, may we use this time to praise Him for His amazing love and sacrifice. Our sin couldn’t be overlooked or ignored if we were to be offered eternal life and Heaven. “The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.” Romans 6:23

Thank you, Jesus!

(Devotional by Cheryl Hall-Laos)