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Day Thirty-Nine | April 7 THIRTY-NINE
Saved by Sacrifice (Good Friday)
Their words hung in the air, suspended by cruelty and hatred and spite. “Give us what we want!” they demanded. “Give us Barabbas!”
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There was no other way.
There had never been another way.
His fate was sealed as, suddenly, He was surrounded by Roman soldiers. Their leather groaned. Their armor rattled. Their swords scraped a demonic, metallic hiss. And He was led away. Beaten. Poked. Mocked. Jeered. Crowned with a diadem of thorns.
The worst was still to come.
He knew the pain and agony that would soon be His, as His promise became a joke and His name, the punch line. Splinters dug deep into holy skin as they led Him through the winding streets of Jerusalem. Spit upon and heckled, He came to that place of brutality and shame, to that place outside the stoic walls of the city that had rejected Him. There, they stretched out His broken body upon the cross; and with the deftness of a master, the soldiers drove spikes into sacred flesh. With cold precision, the soldiers went about their duties –never knowing that this Man that hung above them was the very Son of God, the Savior of the world.
Suspended there, raised to the God to whom He was returning, Jesus bore the sins of the world. He took on Himself its shame and its brokenness; He took on Himself its faults and its failures. With only thieves to attend Him, Jesus cried out … and it was finished. The earth quaked, and the sun went black.
Perfection had died. Hope was dead.
Love was crucified.
It was sacrifice. Saving, sacred sacrifice. Willing, woe-filled sacrifice.
But this is not just some story told by frauds and believed by fools. This is our story. This is our Savior. They were our sins that placed Him on Calvary’s tree, our darkness that snu ed out His light. Jesus died to save us from our brokenness, from our wantonness, from our addictions and anger and fears. Jesus died that we might find grace. He died that we might find hope. He died that we might find a new way to live – showing us who He is … and who we can be, too.
