Post Easter Thoughts

In refusing to save Himself, Jesus was saving me.

At lunch after our Resurrection Day services, my younger son commented on the gruesomeness of Jesus’ death.

“I don’t like to talk about it,” he said, uncomfortable with the physical atrocities wrought upon our Lord’s body. I agreed with him that it was hard to swallow, the depth of Jesus’ physical suffering. “But His separation from the Father on the cross was far worse,” I told him.

In John’s gospel, great pains are taken to communicate the intimacy of the perfect relationship between the Father and the Son. “I don’t think we can grasp how much they love one another,” I told my boys while we ate. “And when Jesus was nailed to the cross and breathed His last, He didn’t just pay for our sins, He became our sins, according to Paul. He was bearing the curse of our sins—every bad thought, every ugly action, every sin. God’s righteous wrath for our sin was absorbed by our Jesus on the cross. As unimaginable as His physical suffering was, far worse was the separation of the Son from the Father, far worse was the death of the Author of life—because of us. For us. Because of Jesus, we’ll never be separated from God.”

Tears welled up in my eyes, and my nine-year-old ran to get a box of tissues for me. “Why do adults always get emotional about this?” my teenager genuinely wanted to understand. “I mean, I believe it is true. I am thankful, but it seems like everyone who’s older than forty gets really emotional.”

I laughed but said this: “I think the longer you walk with Jesus, the more precious the gospel becomes to you.”

And I think that’s true. The longer you know Jesus, the more outlandish and astonishing and extravagant the gospel seems to you. Because it is.

When Jesus was on the cross, the crowd mocked and jeered. If He was really such a king, why couldn’t He get Himself down? Jesus just swallowed all their mockery, knowing He could get down at any moment.

But He didn’t. He wouldn’t.
In refusing to save Himself, Jesus was saving me.

His life for mine. I will never get over it. Never. This is the truth that has changed my life and my eternity. Keep bringing me tissues, my sons, because the gospel really is the best news there is.