LEARNING DAILY

 

I believe in God the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth. And in Jesus Christ, His only Son, our Lord; Who was conceived by the Holy Spirit; Born of the Virgin Mary; Suffered under Pontius Pilate; Was crucified, dead and buried; He descended into Hell; The third day He rose again from the dead; He ascended into heaven; And sitteth on the right hand of God the Father Almighty; From thence He shall come to judge the living and the dead. I believe in the Holy Spirit; The Holy Christian Church, the Communion of Saints; The Forgiveness of sins; The Resurrection of the body; And the life everlasting. Amen.   The Apostle’s Creed

 

Crucifixion was an extremely cruel form of execution.  After suffering the many things that Jesus experienced, He was forced to carry a crossbeam of a cross to Golgotha where He would be crucified. I believe we all can imagine the struggle He went through to do this.  At Golgotha, He was stripped, His arms were stretched along the crossbeam and heavy iron nails were driven through his hands (or wrists).  The crossbeam was then attached to the upright beam.  When that was done, a nail was driven through His feet.

 

The suffering of Jesus was something I can only imagine.  A crown of thorns had been pushed into His head, the damage made by those scourging Him had left Him bloodied and fatigued, and now He experienced hours of pain and all kinds of things happening to His physical body.  The mocking continued because He did not call down an army of angels to save Him and because He did not save Himself.

 

Even nailed to a cross His ministry continued.  He asked the Father in heaven to forgive those doing this because they did not know what they were doing.  He made sure His mother was going to be taken care of, and He told one of the thieves crucified beside Him he would be in paradise with Him.  He told those gathered there not to weep for Him but for themselves and their children; He cried out to His Father because the Father could not look on the Son taking our sins upon Himself. He was thirsty, and then declared, “It is finished” and gave up His spirit.

 

It is not easy to read about what He went through!  I have a lot of questions about this entire thing.  None of them matter.  There are those who want to discuss what the cross looked like.  It does not matter.  All that matters is the baby we celebrate at Christmas time fulfilled the purpose His Father had sent Him to accomplish.  He was the perfect sacrifice, the perfect Lamb, who gave His life to redeem whosoever would believe in Him (John 3:15).  This was the fulfillment of the plan God had laid out in the book of Genesis. 

 

What each of us does with this is important.  If you believe it and accept it, you need to live your life accordingly.  It is entering the narrow door of salvation through Jesus Christ and then staying on the narrow way that leads to eternal life in God’s kingdom.  This is not just some good reading.  It is a matter of where you spend eternity.

 

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