The cross.

  Easter is coming up! I'm excited to watch The Passion on Easter Sunday and really take in why we celebrate Easter. I've never really sat there and thought about what it means, and how it affected Jesus and all that. But the other night, I was praying and just trying to think over Easter, and I thought of some pretty amazing facts.

  1. The cross symbolizes my sin. 2. The cross was heavy, and Jesus carried it. 3. There was no better way for Jesus to be put to shame, than by carrying the cross down the streets of Jerusalem. 4. In Matthew 26, Jesus prays to God when he is very scared, and he asks God if there is any way that he could take away the cup of suffering, but then he ultimately says that he wants God's will to be done and not his own. 5. The incredible pain. 6. That should have been me.

  1: The cross symbolizes my sin. My sin is why Jesus was crucified in the first place. I couldn't be forgiven if Christ hadn't willingly given up his life for my own.
  2: The cross was heavy, and Jesus carried it down the streets. This one kind of ties into the first. I realized that the weight of the cross (my sin) is the weight that sin has on us. When I sin, I ask Jesus to forgive me and of course he always does. But depending on the seriousness of my sin, I sometimes can't forgive myself. When I ask Jesus to forgive me, he does immediately, and the Bible says he doesn't even remember  it anymore. But when it comes to letting the weight of your sin off of your heart, it is so much more difficult. But Christ carried that weight for me. He takes away the weight if we let him.
  3: There is no better way for Jesus to be put to shame, than by carrying the cross down the streets of Jerusalem. If you think back to the way things used to be, there would be huge crowds watching people being put to death. Huge groups of people stoned others in the streets depending on what sins they committed. Can you imagine the shame that Jesus endured? He walked through the streets, and was probably seen by everyone in the entire city. (he was a pretty well-known guy, after all). The Bible says people spat at him, and some people were punching and slapping him. He never did anything wrong!! That always gets me.
  4: In Matthew 26, Jesus prays to God when he is very scared, and he asks God if there is any way that he could take away the cup of suffering, but then he ultimately says that he wants God's will to be done and not his own. Jesus knows what is about to happen to him. He knows everything, even the caliber of pain he is about to be put through. If I knew all of that was about to happen to me, I would probably be begging God to take it away and rescue me. But instead, Jesus asks if it is possible for his cup to be taken, but then he basically says, 'but really, I just want what you want. So if it has to be this way, then let it be.' Could you imagine saying that if you knew exactly what horrific things were about to happen to you, knowing that you never did a single thing wrong?
  5: The incredible pain. Think about it. First, they whipped Jesus many times. They tore open his skin in many places and he was a bloody mess. Then they made a crown out of thorns, and shoved it onto his head. Thorns! I whine like a baby if I get just one in my foot. But he took several, and they were shoved into his scalp. And then, as if that wasn't enough, after he was weak and almost broken already, they forced him to take the enormous weight of the cross and carry it through the city. Past every single person that spat on him and hit him, up to the hill where they proceeded to take four nails, and shove two of them into his wrists, and two into his ankles. Just stop to think about that for a moment. The pain is incomprehensible. Surely none of us have ever taken on such pain, as he did. And he did it for me, and for you.
  6: That should have been me. All of it, from the beginning, he endured just to buy my pardon with God. What he, a completely innocent man, took for me, is what I deserve for the things I do every day. It should have been I who endured a kiss from a friend who betrayed me, who was judged guilty, who sat there while people whipped me and shoved thorns into my head, who carried the immense weight of the cross with a week and beaten body. The shame should have been mine. And most importantly, the pain of my body being hung on two pieces of wood by four nails should have been mine.

 Yet he takes all of it away completely. This is what I am going to remember on Easter Sunday. What are you going to remember? What are you going to think of? Are you going to be focused on getting a day off, being able to take a nap, or being lazy for a day?