The Cross Of Death That Leads to Life ~ By Marie Sgro

THE CROSS OF DEATH THAT LEADS TO LIFE

By Marie Sgro

We were not worthy, yet so loving is God, that He left the splendor and glory of Heaven to come to the earth He had created; and divinity came to live in the frail flesh of humanity.  Flesh that would experience hunger and thirst, abandonment, betrayal of trusted friends, pain, agony, ridicule, shame and the brutal and tortuous experience of crucifixion.

Only by becoming one of the beings He had created, could a Holy God, who is spirit, know the emotions and experiences of dwelling in human flesh.  He did not despise that flesh, but lived in it with its limitations and vulnerabilities for thirty three years, knowing that in an instant He could have called on the Heavenly host of angels to bring Him back to the glory He had known with the Father before time began.  But He remained and endured because there was no other way to reconcile sinful man to a holy God.

In the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus wept and cried out, "O My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from Me; nevertheless not as I will, but as You will" (Matthew 26:39).

We might believe that in His humanity Jesus trembled in fear, anticipating the agony that awaited Him at Calvary.  But, no!  From the foundation of the world, the Lamb of God had been ordained as the Suffering Servant, born to die for the sins of the world.  Every sin that vile humanity had committed, past, present and future, was about to fall upon Him.

As He sweated great drops of blood in that garden, the Christ, the Messiah, the Savior of the world, God in human flesh, knew that when the burden of humanities' sin covered Him and He became sin for us, the Father could not look upon Him.  For Jesus, the agony in the garden was for the coming separation from His Heavenly Father.

Close your eyes and see in your mind the dusty streets of Jerusalem, lined with those who loved and hated Him.  Do you see Jesus?  Can you imagine what He endured for you?  The Son of Man is in a tattered robe, looking like a soldier beaten in battle as He stands covered in blood from His head to His feet.  A crown of thorns is pressed into His head.  He walks step by painful step, carrying the unbearable weight of the cross.

People are jeering at Him, spitting on Him, taunting Him.  But He walks on.  Can any of us imagine or comprehend that the most horrifying prospect for Jesus is none of these things.  But only the coming separation from the Father.  As Jesus hung on the Cross in the darkness that fell over the entire land, the weight of separation from the Father was greater than the sin of mankind that had enveloped Him.  And He cried out, "My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?" (Mark 15.34)  The separation from the Father had come.

With His final breath in His broken body He said, "It is finished.  And bowing His head, He gave up His Spirit." (John 19:30)  Jesus had completed the task He was given and the separation was over.

We also were once separated from God because of our sin, but we experienced no agony over that separation, because we were dead in our sins and had no relationship with Him.  But now that God has reconciled us to Himself through the blood of Christ, how horrifying and painful does the thought of separation from God affect us now?  Though we have been spared the suffering of the Cross, yet we have been cleansed, saved by His grace and given eternal life.

As the disobedience of the first Adam caused God's perfect creation to become polluted with sin and darkness, so the Second Adam, obedient even unto death, rebuilt the bridge that had separated us from God, the Father.

There is no need for us to fear separation from God any longer.  The Bible tells us that "neither death not life, nor angels nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, nor height, not depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord" (Romans 8:38).

We must treasure and value our relationship with God.  Nurture it with prayer, cherish it with obedience, value it more than life, invest in it with time and service and honor it through love.

Many are standing at the brink of the precipice, perhaps only one breath away from eternity.  The Cross of Christ is before them, spanning the gap of their separation from God.  If you know someone standing there right now, tell them about Jesus.  Their time is running out.

Let us embrace the Cross of Death that Leads to Life and share its message with a lost and dying world.

Another Post from my dear, talented friend, Marie Sgro 

<3 Thank you, Marie <3