I read the crucifixion narrative last night and was moved to tears not long after I began reading.
My first response upon reading it was disgust. Disgust at the graphic nature of what I was reading. I don't like graphic things. I don't like scary or gross things. I wanted to stop reading. I wanted to walk away. That feeling then turned into disgust that this narrative was actually reality - this was a real man who suffered real pain and died a real death - it's not just a story that resulted in a cool necklace design. And then disgust that God would go to such lengths and suffer such humiliation and pain for me and for my sin. And disgust that this cross and this reality does not affect my soul like it should.
My second response (which was simultaneous to the first), to my shame, was honestly one of cold-hearted apathy. The disgust made me want to turn away. The story was familiar. Jesus was beaten. He suffered lots of pain as they beat him. He died a cruel death to take my sins upon himself. But He rose again. That's the real story. He lives. There's hope.
Strike one. I kept reading...
I looked on this narrative with disgust (despised and rejected of men) as I was reading. but there I found love. His response to my disgust was the same as his response to the centurion. He looked on me with eyes of love. With a love that existed before the world did. The tears began to flow at this point.
In His lonliness, He trusted. In his trial, He looked to His daddy. Holiness in human form became treated like trash. Yet, he faithfully followed the will of His Father.
... but the story doesn't stop there. I have sadly become familiar with this love. I expect it. He's God. That's what He does. He loves. Its in John 3:16 - He loved the world...
Strike two...
What I wasn't expecting was the interaction that took place while Jesus was actually on the cross itself. As a result of both my disgust and the fact that I know the end of the story, I don't take the necessary time to sit at the foot of the cross and marvel in the substitutionary atonement of Christ. I pass it off as mere details and miss the beauty found in that disgustingly graphic scene.
I've always pictured Christ as taking my sin - as if He were taking a bag full of evil deeds and holding them on His back while He was on the cross. He was still perfect, just holding my sin for me. However, that's not what the crucifixion narrative last night showed me. And I don't believe that's what truly happened there that day.
As God the Father, the holy righteous Judge of the universe, looked at His beloved, sinless, holy, perfect Son, hanging there on that cross, He saw sin. He saw a vile, wretched betrayer of the holy, sovereing Creator. He saw the sin of unbelief, the sin of discontentment, the sin of arrogant pride. He saw a man who worshipped idols and turned from trusting in the one and living God. God saw cowardice, He saw hatred, He saw ungratefulness, He saw disgusting, vile undending wretchedness. And He was disgusted. He was disgusted by the unbelief that Jesus was. He saw Jesus as a filthy, wreched whore. He saw Him as a drunk. He saw Him as someone seeking satisfaction in riches. He saw Jesus, the only man who ever lived a perfect life, wholly for the glory of God, with no ill-intent, no lack of trust, no self-sufficiency - God saw that man as me. I am the one who is a filthy idolator. I am the one who is sinfully discontent and complains about my sorry state. I am the one who looks to my own ability and turns from infinite Power. I am the one. When God looked at His son on the cross, He didn't just see a perfect Jesus holding a bag of my sin. He saw a filthy disgusting Jesus that was guilty of that death he was suffering at that moment. He saw deserved pain and suffering. He saw a just punishment from someone who was deserving of that wrath. He saw me.
But because He's a holy God, he couldn't look at that. He turned away. He removed His presence from the One who had always been in union with Him. God the Father deserted His Son who had never not been wholly with Him for eternity. And in judgment, He left him there to die. God walked away in disgust. Not disgust because of the graphic nature of a beaten man hanging naked and bleeding on a tree. Rather disgust because of who Jesus was at that moment. Jesus was sin. He was justly cursed by God because He was sin. He, at that moment, was not viewed in the eyes of the Father as "my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased." No, He was viewed by His Father as a traitor, as a usurper, as a blasphemer, a complainer and as an anti-christ.
Jesus bore that for me. In his perfection, He became sin for me. He who knew no sin for all eternity, took my place in His body on that tree. He was, at that moment, everything that I am. It should have been me. I should have been beaten beyond recongition. I should have had the nails in my hands and the thorns in my head. I should have been cursed by God. I should have been forsaken.
But in love, He took my place. In His mercy, He bore what I didn't ask him to bear. In His grace, He took it all. He drank and drank and drank and drank that cup of God's wrath until it was dry. He drank it for my pride and arrogance and self-sufficient idolatry and for my murderous thoughts and for my unrepentant ungrateful heart. He drank for me. That cup, that for all eternity would have to be drunk by me and could still never be satisfied, was completely satisfied that day. It is empty. Not only is the tomb empty, but the cup is empty too!! God's wrath is completely satisfied. His anger and judgment for who I was, was completley taken in love, by that man that I looked upon with disgust. That man that I wanted to turn away from, didn't turn away from taking my place though He could have. That man that God looked upon as deserving of that punishment, bore it all so that God will never look upon me that way. The One who had never been separated from His Fater, was separated so that I never will be.
The words "amazing grace" are insufficient. There are no words. There are not enough tears to express the emotion found that day. There is not enough to give to someone who did all that for me. Truly this man was the Son of God. Truly, this was a magnificent substitution. He bore my sins! He took my place. He died my death. He hurt so I wouldn't have to. He suffered so I could go free. He cried in lonly agony so that I could rejoice. He was forsaken by the Judge, so I could be accepted by the Father.
It is finished. There is no payment required from me. The debt has not been cancelled, it has been paid. The sins have not been removed, they have been cursed. God will never look upon me in condemnation, for He condemned every transgression of mine that day. There was not one sin of mine that God did not see in Jesus that day. They are all gone. They are all paid. They are finished.