“I will not boast in anything, no gifts, no power, no wisdom; but I will boast in Jesus Christ, His death and resurrection. Why should I gain from His reward? I cannot give an answer, but this I know with all my heart – His wounds have paid my ransom.”
Matthew 26:36-56, 27:11-28:10, Mark 14:32-65, 15-16:11, Luke 22:39-54, 23-24:1-12, John 18:1-14, 18:19-20:1-18
Jesus’ Sacrifice
Jesus brings His disciples up to the Garden of Gethsemane to pray with Him. Jesus knew what was coming. He knew that He would be abandoned, tortured and die on the cross. Even though Jesus was God, He was also man and His flesh did not want to go through what was coming. He even asked God to take the burden away from Him. But He knew it was something He had to do.
When the soldiers came to capture Him, Jesus went with them willingly, trusting God with the end result. The disciples wanted to resist, but Jesus knew what was at stake. He was brought before Pontius Pilot to be convicted of crimes He did not commit. Pilot did not want to convict Him so he sent Jesus to Herod, who also did not want to convict him, so he was sent back to Pilot again. Pilot let the crowd decide between Jesus and Barabbas and the crowd chose Barabbas to be set free. Even though the week before the people of Israel were honoring Jesus and calling Him Messiah. The following week they were spitting on Him and condemning Him to death. They proceeded to mock and torture Him, leading Him to the cross and to His eventual death.
However, with the death of Jesus came victory over death, hell and the grave. When Jesus died, He paid the price for each person on earth. Instead of being subject to slavery, He bought the freedom of all God’s children. This was part of God’s plan to bring redemption to the world. Jesus took all sin, pain, sickness and fear with Him to the cross so that after His death and resurrection we would no longer be subject to it. That is not to say we will not ever face these things, but through Jesus’ death we are no longer enslaved by these.
QUESTIONS TO THINK ABOUT:
- How often do I take the time to really think through the sacrifice Jesus made?
- How do I live my life differently because of Jesus’ death?
- Do I take advantage of what Jesus did on the cross?