The Greatest Sacrifice

Jesus’ path to the cross began long before the Gospel accounts. It was a plan written into the pages of time by the Father and the Son, written even before the very first sunrise. It was promised first to our parents in Genesis and affirmed throughout the Old Testament. Christ’s blood is the thread that weaves the pages of the Old and New Testament together to form the story of our redemption.

When I think about how Jesus knowingly and willingly walked up the road to the cross, I am humbled. He could have spoken one word and everything would have stopped. Just as he called the storm with one command, he could have stopped the soldiers with merely a whisper. The book of Hebrews tells us that, “for the joy set before him he endured the cross. ” Jesus knew that there was a greater joy beyond the pain. He anticipated the gratification of our complete fellowship with God and was willing to sacrifice himself to make that possible.

He was despised and rejected a man of sorrows, acquainted with deepest grief.
We turned our backs on him and looked the other way. He was despised, and we did not care.
Yet it was our weaknesses he carried; it was our sorrows[a] that weighed him down.
And we thought his troubles were a punishment from God, a punishment for his own sins!
But he was pierced for our rebellion, crushed for our sins.
He was beaten so we could be whole. He was whipped so we could be healed.
All of us, like sheep, have strayed away. We have left God’s paths to follow our own.
Yet the LORD laid on him the sins of us all. (Isaiah 53:3-6 NLT)

I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. Galatians 2:20

The resurrection of Jesus changes the face of death for all His people. Death is no longer a prison, but a passage into God’s presence.

My prayer is that this Easter that you might know and experience the Love of a God who did not spare his only son but sacrificed Him, so that you and I might find a way back to Him and experience a relationship with him that will not only carry us through this life but will last for all eternity.