Thirty-Third Day of Lent

Thirty-Third Day of Lent

Friday, April 7, 2017

About three in the afternoon, Jesus cried out in a loud voice, “Eloi, Eloi, lama sabacthani?” (which means, “My God, my God why have you forsaken me?”).

Matthew 27:46

Genesis 1:26 says, “Let us make man in our own image,” and most concede that the “us” is the Triune God. This is supported by the first verse in the Gospel of John: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” Always, this Mystical Union had existed, without separation of his parts. God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit – One.

In his awful agony on that ugly and cruel cross, Jesus screamed out the words above. When he needed God the Father most, he was separated from him! Why?

Habakkuk, that little minor prophet in the Old Testament tells us why. He says, “my God, my Holy one, . . . You are too pure to look on evil.” (Habakkuk 1:12a, 13a)

At the moment of this agonizing cry unto God, all the sin of the whole world was poured out on Jesus, and God turned away from him. Jesus was accepting punishment for every sin we’ll ever commit, and God was repulsed by the sight of it. This one whom God had once looked upon and declared, “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well-pleased,” now was covered with the world’s ugly sin. God loved the world so much that he allowed it. And Jesus endured it because he wanted the world to know, “[he] loved the Father and that [he] did exactly what [his] Father had commanded.” (John 14:31)

Our hearts must surely break to realize what we have done, and at the same time they must burst with joy that God would go to such an extreme to buy us back from our sin!

Prayer: We can never do enough to thank you. Help us make our lives show that we remember the great price you have paid for us. Amen.

And He Set His Face toward Jerusalem. . . .

A Lenten Devotional Guide
prepared for Homosassa United Methodist Church, Spring 2007,
by Patience Nave, Christian Education Coordinator