When I Think About the Cross
“I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.”
The Romans were experts in the art of inflicting pain and torture upon convicted felons in an effort to send a message throughout the Roman Empire. This form of execution was slow, painful, gruesome, humiliating, and public using whatever means were expedient for securing death.
Jesus was crucified. Scripture tells us he was wrongly tried, wrongly convicted, wrongly put to death. The prophet Isaiah prophesied years earlier concerning Jesus’ death:
“He was despised and rejected by men,…But he was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth; Yet it was the will of the Lord to crush him; he has put him to grief; when his soul makes an offering for guilt”
Why did these things happen? There had to be a payment for my sin. I had to be held accountable for my broken relationship with a holy God, broken because of my sin. The payment would be my death. I deserved all that Christ took upon Himself. I should have found myself on that cross. But wait. God, in His infinite mercy, took an innocent life, and thrust upon it all the sin of mankind. That life paid the price. That life was Jesus’. I deserved that cross…the humiliating, embarrassing, ugly sign of separation from God. But, thanks be to God I no longer have to live under the bondage or the shame of my sin.
I can now join with millions of others who have bowed their knees to God with all humility, to accept this gift of salvation. And with boldness and a grateful heart we sing,