After attending a Good Friday service yesterday at my home church, I couldn’t help but take my thoughts to the moments Jesus Christ said his last words and took his final breath on the cross. I love to have these moments of sobering thoughts because that final breath on that cross holds such great significance. With every passing Good Friday that I have walked with the Lord and deepened my relationship with him, it becomes much clearer to me that what he did was far too great to be taken lightly. I hope as you remember what Jesus did for you on that cross, these sobering thoughts can help you understand the magnitude of his death for us.

Sobering thoughts of his teachings and MIracles

Jesus did not start his full teachings until he was thirty. It was only after his baptism that he began to read of his teaching and miracles (read Matthew 3: 13-17). He was the son of God but humbly allowed a man to baptize him. Even man felt unworthy, yet he allowed it. When he began to teach and perform miracles people could not resist hearing him teach or bearing witness to his miracles. Why was this significant before? Unlike what was taught to them, this was different, his teaching dealt with the heart and sinful nature of man. He did not address people to condemn them but called them to repentance. From the start, his purpose was to reconcile them with God through his teachings. I have been studying the sermon on the mount with my Bible study group, which I consider one of Jesus’s greatest sermons by the way. From this sermon can get a full scope of his reconciliation message between God and man. In Matthew 7:29 it says the crowds that gathered at the mount concluded that he taught with authority, unlike the teachers of religious law. Similarly, those who bore witness to his miracles were never the same again. How could these very same people who sat under his teachings and saw his miracles still watch him be crucified? The sobering thought here is Jesus was humble, taught with authority, and performed miracles all for the sole purpose of reconciliation. He came to change the narrative of the old through his teaching. The greatest teacher I know to date. It is something people needed to sit under and bear witness that truly the Messiah was on earth.

sOBERING THOUGHTS OF god WITH US

Before his death and resurrection, through Christ Jesus, God was with us. Emmanuel! God was with his people (read Matthew 1:23). He was born and grew up just like you and I. He was cared for by his earthly parents as some of us. He felt like you and I, joy, sadness, pain, and other emotions. He formed relationships and lived with mankind on Earth. He worked! can you imagine that, he actually worked and probably at the end of the day needed to rest from a day’s work, just like we do. How can we not see the magnitude of his purpose to reconcile us with God? For God so loved the world that he gave us his son Jesus! And through Jesus, people were with God. The sobering thought here is that God was no longer only reached by one man, or by one group, but all could come to freely and be near God through Christ Jesus!

sOBERING THOUGHTS OF gOD’S WILL THROUGH CHRIST

We read several times in the gospels that Jesus even after miracles happened, asked that it not be shared. It was not yet time. The timing of it all was not up to him, it was as God willed. He was on earth to do the Lord’s will. It was God’s will that his son would die on the cross for us all. Because of God’s will the timing of everything was important and what happened during Jesus’s time had to happen, what happened before the cross was God’s will;

• Jesus born of a virgin.
• Jesus saved from Herod’s order to kill male children.
• The baptism of Jesus.
• Jesus being tempted by the devil.
• Jesus’s teachings and miracles.
• His disciples who followed him and would later spread the gospel.
• The denial of his teachings by teachers of religious law.
• The hostility and fear of the Roman Empire.
• The sharing of the last meal and washing his disciples’ feet.
• The betrayal of Judas.

All of it was in the will of God. However, before the cross, Jesus in great anguish asked if this crucifixion could pass him by, yet if not, that God’s will would come to pass. And so it did. The son of God was arrested to be crucified, even Peter’s wrath could not stop the will of God. For what crime? There was no crime he had committed, but declare he is the Messiah that those of old have spoken about. The sobering thought here is that Jesus came to do God’s will for you and me! He at the hands of the very people he came to save, was arrested to be crucified. He freely gave himself to the will of God. The more you sit with this thought, the more it reminds you of how great Good Friday means for you.

The sobering thought of the cross

I looked at the cross yesterday during our Good Friday service and tears ran down my face. As Christians, that symbolic cross we look at is a reminder that the son of man, came down from heaven to render us free from sin and shame. He took the suffering and the brutal pain of the cross so that we would be free. His act of such great love and sacrifice allowed us to be reconciled with God. Even when we think we are undeserving of the act of love on that cross, he did it! Jesus felt the pain of the cross and as he hung, he called out to his father, he cried out as darkness settled on earth. In a loud voice, he said “Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?” (My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?). He was surrounded by the world and some of the people of the world did not know what all this meant for them. Jesus in the last of his life asked that God would forgive them for they did not know what they were doing (read Luke 23:34). Jesus even in his death remembered that it was for the people he came to die for and even though they did not know it, he asked God to forgive them. This very same forgiveness is why we are here, forgiven for our sins. Thank you, Lord. Jesus committed his spirit to God and said it was finished (read John 19:30). What was finished? The will of his Father! The sobering thought here is that Jesus fulfilled the will of God, it was finished. What does that mean for those that were present then and what does it mean now for us? Because Jesus gave himself as a living sacrifice for all humanity, we can freely come to God. If we confess that Jesus died on the cross for us all. When repent and accept Jesus as our savior, our reconciliation is established through the cross where Jesus died. The greatest act of love! Keep these sobering thoughts with you as you go into celebrating his resurrection. He has risen! He is alive!

Much love,

Xholiwe