The Greatest Story Ever Told

"For Christ died for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God. he was put to death in the both but made alive by the Spirit..." - 1 Peter 3:18

This weekend, we celebrated Good Friday and Easter Sunday. These are not just two more holidays. I want to bring light to the significance of these two days. These days celebrate the most revolutionary events of all time. Events which changed the course of humanity and are the foundation of the Christian faith. I wish I could do this story justice. You have to experience it for yourself.

Around 2000 years ago, a man named Jesus walked the Earth. But this wasn't just an ordinary man. He was 100% man, yet 100% God. God in the flesh. "the Word was God...The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us" (John 1:14). He spent 33 years here, the last three years consisting of His ministry where he healed, performed miracles, taught, served, and more. Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John talk about His time here and even with everything recorded about what He did, John says "Jesus did many other things as well. If every one of them were written down, I supposed that even the whole world would not have room for the books that would be written" (John 21:25). And everything He did, as well as much of the Old Testament, was to lead to the cross.

From the first sin in the garden of Eden, humanity was headed for destruction. As humans, we are born into sin.  During Old Testament times, the people had to atone for their sins by offering perfect sacrifices and they had to do this constantly. Being a perfect and holy God, He can't be around that. Sin causes separation between man and God. The only way to Heaven and God is by being perfect, but "No one is good except God alone" (Mark 10:18). So with that, humans were headed for Hell, eternal separation from God. That's where Jesus steps in. Christianity is the only religion where God reaches out to man. God created humans to love them. He wants to be with us, to walk with us and have a relationship with us. That's why He died on the cross. It was the sacrifice, Christ's blood, which allows for that by cleansing us. "And by that will, we have been made holy through the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ once for all" (Hebrews 10:10). We are forgiven of our sins because Jesus took all of man's sin forever on that cross. He saved us, freed us, and gave us life. "When you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your sinful nature, God made you alive with Christ. He forgave us all our sins, having canceled the written code, with regulations, that was against us and that stood opposed to us; he took it away, nailing it to the cross. And having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross" (Colossians 2:13-15).

The cross is the symbol of the Christian faith, but the much of the seriousness behind it has become lost. Think about what Jesus had to go through leading up to His death on the cross. Throughout His time on Earth, He knew what He had to do and everything that was going to happen. As He was praying in the garden of Gethsemane, he was "in anguish, and his sweat was like drops of blood falling to the ground" (Luke 22:44). Some may even believe He was sweating blood, which is caused by extreme levels of anguish, strain, or sensitivity. He wished for the cup of suffering He would go through to be taken from Him, but He knew He had to do it and He willingly obeyed. Next, He was betrayed, by one of His own disciples for thirty pieces of silver. He was arrested, abandoned by His disciples, taken to trial, then ordered to be beaten. He was flogged nearly to the point of death. He wasn't just whipped, He had glass, nails, and bone ripping His flesh. He was mocked, spat on, punched in the face, had thorns driven into His brow. And He still had to be crucified. He had to carry a heavy cross to the place where He was to be crucified, but His body was so weak, He couldn't do it. Someone else had to do it for Him. At Golgotha, He had nails driven into His hands and feet and was crucified. Crucifixion killed people by causing them to suffocate. In order to take a breath, they had to push up with their feet, which hurt since they had a nail driven into them, then go back down. All that just to take a breath. Jesus hung on that cross for hours before dying. When the Romans got tired of waiting for people to die, they would break their legs so they couldn't go up to take any more breaths. But the time they decided to do this to the other two men who Jesus was crucified with, Jesus was already dead. They simply pierced His side to make sure, and blood and water flowed out. I can't even imagine all the pain He went through, from the stress to the betrayal to the mocking and beating to the crucifixion. Despite all the physical pain He went through, I believe the pain of carrying all that sin was much worse. Near His death on the cross, "Jesus cried out in a loud voice, 'Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani? - which means, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?'" (Matthew 27:46, Mark 15:34) and I believe at this point He felt as if He was separated from God because of all the sin He took for us. But He did it willingly for His glory, and for us. And as He died "Jesus said, 'It is finished'" (John 19:30). What He needed to do in order to save us was done. "At that moment the curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom" (Matthew 27:51). This curtain represented the separation between humans and God, but it was torn after what Jesus did and we are now able to have a connection with God. He lived a perfect life and offered Himself as the perfect sacrifice for us. All because He loves us and wants to spend eternity with us.

What Jesus did is mind-blowing. He did what no other man can do. Here is God, all-powerful, all-knowing, and omnipresent, deciding to limit Himself and completely change His state of being to do this. Glorious King in Heaven coming down to Earth as a servant and dying the death of a criminal. Immortal, eternal, and spirit becoming mortal, limiting Himself to time, in a human body. Holy and perfect coming to live among fallen people. He was limited to human conditions and needs. He got hungry, thirsty, tired, sweated, cried, was stressed, tempted, everything we humans go through He did. God of the universe choosing to put Himself through all this. "Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends" (John 15:13) and through the cross, Jesus displayed His amazing love for us, one greater than any we could ever know. John Piper presents it like this. "In order for Jesus to suffer and die he had to plan way ahead of time because He couldn't die. Immortal. He didn't have any body, and yet He wanted to die. For you. So He planned the whole thing by clothing Himself with a body so that He could get hungry, and get weary, and get sore feet. The incarnation is the preparation of nerve endings for the nails. The preparation of a brow for thorns to press through. He needed to have a broad back so that there was a place for the whip. He needed to have feet so that there was a place for spikes. He needed to have a side so that there was a place for the sword to go in. He needed fleshy cheeks so that Judas would have a place to kiss and there would be a place for the spit to run down that the soldiers put on Him. He needed a brain and a spinal column with no vinegar and no gall so that the exquisiteness of the pain could be fully felt. I just plead with you, when you're reading the Bible and you read texts like He loved you and gave Himself for you, you wouldn't go too fast over it. Linger, linger, linger, and plead with Him that your eyes would be opened."

Thank God the story doesn't end with Jesus' death. On the third day, He rose! The tomb is empty, He defeated death. "'Death has been swallowed up in victory.' 'Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?'" (1 Corinthians 15:54-55) On the cross, Jesus bore all our sins, taking them away from us. "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). But without the resurrection it would all be meaningless. "And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins" (1 Corinthians 15:17). He would have just been another man who claimed to be God and died. Through the resurrection He proved Himself to be God, redeemed us, gave us hope, gave us victory over death, and guaranteed our resurrection as believers. It is the reason why the Christian faith and the Church exists today. We benefit so much from what Jesus did. He promises us everything good. To not accept what God offers us through Jesus Christ would be ridiculous. We are now able to know the one, true God who is the greatest love ever. We can experience His grace. We can be made new and live in the light. We can have the Holy Spirit live in us. We can live in the presence of God for eternity. We can have a personal relationship with an amazing God because He is risen! We worship a God who is alive!

Please see the seriousness and intensity in what Jesus did, the reason we have a Good Friday and Easter Sunday. God willingly did all this. When Jesus was being crucified, there were two criminals being crucified with Him, one on each side. One insulted Him, while the other repented, believed Jesus was who He said He was, and put his faith in Him. "Jesus answered him, 'I tell you the truth, today you will be with me in paradise" (Luke 23:43). What will our response be?

"For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish by have eternal life." - John 3:16