Preparing for Easter (Friday): The Temple Curtain

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44 It was now about the sixth hour, and there was darkness over the whole land until the ninth hour, 45 while the sun’s light failed. And the curtain of the temple was torn in two. 46 Then Jesus, calling out with a loud voice, said, “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit!” And having said this he breathed his last. 47 Now when the centurion saw what had taken place, he praised God, saying, “Certainly this man was innocent!” 48 And all the crowds that had assembled for this spectacle, when they saw what had taken place, returned home beating their breasts. 49 And all his acquaintances and the women who had followed him from Galilee stood at a distance watching these things. Luke 23:44-47 

Jesus inhaled His last breath and exhaled grace. The sun hid, and hope was swallowed up by the dark.

Panicking, the crowd ran down Golgotha, but those next to the cross had nowhere to go. They had journeyed with their Friend to His death on Jerusalem’s outskirts, the city that had mocked and rejected Him. So how could it be a city for them ever again? They hadn’t brought lanterns, but truly, their souls felt darker than the path before them. They stumbled through the rocks and weeds, through the broken edges of a foot-worn path whose fragments reminded them of Jesus’s torn body.

From Golgotha’s height, this temple was in view — with all its rules and boundaries and religious ones hovering near the outside, hoping to get God’s favor.

And though Christ had breathed his last on the cross, God’s presence was now forever accessible. That intimidating curtain, that “no admittance” curtain separating God’s dwelling place in the temple was torn – literally torn – in two. The Lamb had been sacrificed, His blood had been spilled, and God violently ripped the veil of separation.

His fierce longing and love for His people could never be denied, and even the hardened Centurion who witnessed it all felt Truth move in his heart.

Maybe it feels safer for you to hover from a distance than witness the ripped curtain hanging with its shreds. Maybe the rules and checklists of the Law feel less risky to your desperate heart. Or, maybe the darkness is still shadowing your hope as you stumble along a fragmented path.

But, what’s redemption without the unraveling? What’s everlasting peace without the broken, uneven path leading us there?

Friend, this Rescue Plan is for you. This intense love proven on a cross is for you.

Can you feel His pursuit?

photo source | Jametlene Reskp

Preparing for Easter (Thursday): The Other Cross

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39 One of the criminals who were hanged railed at him, saying, “Are you not the Christ? Save yourself and us!” 40 But the other rebuked him, saying, “Do you not fear God, since you are under the same sentence of condemnation? 41 And we indeed justly, for we are receiving the due reward of our deeds; but this man has done nothing wrong.” 42 And he said, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.” 43 And he said to him, “Truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in paradise.” Luke 23:39-43 

How did my life come to this? He was so scared. He had faced humiliation before — he had been beaten and exposed many times before today, his execution day. But the darkest fear ever now suffocated his heart as the criminal pushed himself upward to relieve his lungs.

On the edge of death, hanging on a cross, the uncertainty of what was ahead overwhelmed the perpetrator of crimes. All his pride throughout his lifetime couldn’t save him now. The method reserved for the lowest of criminals, crucifixion, stole any hope of purpose, any hope of redemption. His life was over, and he had nothing to offer society, nothing to offer his family, nothing to offer even himself.

He heard the mocking soldiers joke about the Man beside him, but their insults were nearly drowned by a weeping crowd. Who cries for a criminal?! There’s something different about this Man. His neighbor in death seemed to be in a different world, seemed to know something he didn’t. The angst of His face contrasted the divine of His countenance.

Maybe, just maybe, He really is the Christ. Intended as the soldiers’ joke, the criminal had nothing else to cling to. Nothing to lose.

“When you come into Your kingdom, please remember me.”

With no pride to hide behind and nothing to offer, the criminal spoke from his poverty, risking his last traces of dignity.

Even in His death, Jesus embraced those deemed irreparable by culture. He extended His grace to those who have nothing to offer Him. “Today, you will be with Me in Paradise. I see your lifetime of sin, and I see your desperate ache. I am reaching toward your helplessness and want to be in relationship with you for eternity.”

And friend, He’s reaching toward you, too. Those of you dancing between pride and shame, self-righteousness and brokenness, He’s reaching into your exhaustion to rescue and repair and restore and redeem. He walked the hill of Golgotha to His death for you. For me. For His Bride.

Preparing for Easter (Wednesday): The Game of Mockery

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 Two others, who were criminals, were led away to be put to death with him. And when they came to the place that is called The Skull, there they crucified him, and the criminals, one on his right and one on his left. And Jesus said, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” And they cast lots to divide his garments. And the people stood by, watching, but the rulers scoffed at him, saying, “He saved others; let him save himself, if he is the Christ of God, his Chosen One!” The soldiers also mocked him, coming up and offering him sour wine and saying, “If you are the King of the Jews, save yourself!” There was also an inscription over him, “This is the King of the Jews.” Luke 23:32-38 

He was one of three. One of three Persons in the Holy Godhead, Jesus was one of three crucified on an execution hill, too. Numbered with the transgressors, He identified with the broken and the outcast even in His death.

Can you hear the crass celebrating of the crowd? Can you sense the soldier’s hatred and the misaligned pursuit of justice? There was the arrogance… and the fear of what they didn’t understand… and the reality of being a pawn in the Roman army.

Directing imprisonment and torture and execution day after day, the soldiers trivialized their work, escaped the reality of their orders, by making a game. Casting lots, they hoped to “win” the criminals’ garments as those hanging on crosses were losing their lives.

And the rulers, the leaders, stooped low like the common masses. They jeered and scoffed and made a mockery of the One who came to save them from a captivity they didn’t even know had chained them. “The Rescuer can’t rescue Himself… the Giver of Freedom can’t free His own body… The Son of God, the Chosen One, is insignificant and forgotten now!”

“Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do… Spread your grace over the oppressors. Flood the ignorant followers with your forgiveness. Restore the unbelieving Jews.” In his last moments on earth, Jesus concludes His ministry by pouring out His blood, spilling His redemption everywhere.

Maybe you’re the transgressor, or the arrogant, or the avoider who’s trivializing pain, or the skeptic. His broken body, his spilled out blood, it’s for you. His forgiveness and grace and redemption – it’s all for you.

Can you humbly surrender to His pursuit?

Can you enter His great Love Story?

Preparing for Easter (Tuesday): The Unseen Story

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story227 And there followed him a great multitude of the people and of women who were mourning and lamenting for him. 28 But turning to them Jesus said, “Daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep for me, but weep for yourselves and for your children. 29 For behold, the days are coming when they will say, ‘Blessed are the barren and the wombs that never bore and the breasts that never nursed!’ 30 Then they will begin to say to the mountains, ‘Fall on us,’ and to the hills, ‘Cover us.’ 31 For if they do these things when the wood is green, what will happen when it is dry?” Luke 23:27-31 

There were throngs of commoners, local women who were unknown, shrieking and mourning over the torn Man stumbling by. Some hid their eyes from the suffering, but those who dared to look wailed with grief and fright. The story of Jesus’s torture had spread like wildfire as injustice burned fear deep within their souls.

The self-proclaimed Messiah seemed to always surround Himself with ordinary people, and now, too, even on His execution day, He engaged nameless individuals in the crowd.

To their surprise, Jesus turned. He turned and looked right at them and predicted their suffering. “Your city,” He warned, “your city will be destroyed. Weep for your future. Weep for your children’s future. You will seek refuge from destruction and have to flee from what’s familiar to find it.”

Predicting the destruction of Jerusalem that would later come in AD 70, Christ used His own suffering to teach about Jerusalem’s coming doom. City-dwellers and rural residents alike longed to be rescued from oppressive Roman rule. For years, they had begged God for a political leader only to meet a Messiah who spoke mysteriously about a world beyond what they could see. They wanted relief for their everyday, but He spoke of peace for eternity. They wanted an alternative to crooked laws, but He offered deliverance from their sin that was staining their choices and relationships and communion with Jehovah.

“You’ll have to flee what’s familiar…” Challenging them to consider a kingdom beyond what they could see, Jesus offered something bigger than even the Roman empire. 

And He calls us, too. The Restorer of what’s broken calls us beyond what’s tangible, beyond our temporary comforts, in order to find healing.

It’s easy to forget, isn’t it? It’s easy to forget we were made for a different world. We imagine relief from this tangible world, but Christ’s deliverance is bread for the famished soul; it’s peace for the war waging within our heart and thought-patterns.

Are you begging for a change in circumstances? The Rescuer sees you and is offering to transform you.


photo source | steve halama

Preparing for Easter (Monday): The Immigrant’s Path

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Narrow street in Jewish Quarter Jerusalem26 And as they led him away, they seized one Simon of Cyrene, who was coming in from the country, and laid on him the cross, to carry it behind Jesus. Luke 23:26

Do you see him? Do you see that man from the countryside, common and random, thrust into the drama of an execution? Originally from North Africa, Simon the immigrant had journeyed into a new life in Israel, only to walk yet another path — this one stained with blood.

He followed Jesus from behind, struggling to balance a heavy beam as his mind raced to find an explanation. Splinters dug into his neck, but fear kept him moving as he looked straight ahead at the tortured Man, avoiding the soldiers’ glare. What in the world had that Man done to deserve such a beating? To earn such a humiliating death?

Power and oppressive force had yanked Simon into the day’s events, as he navigated the scene. Carrying the burden of death on his shoulders, remnants of blood stained his cloak while his mind and heart were forever scarred. The suffering and the mystery captured him, wooing him into a Love Story even he didn’t understand at the time.

The Man was known and cherished, as commoners in the crowd wept hard and grieved His suffering.

Will we surrender to God’s plan, to the path chosen for us?

We walk through life, busy with determination for ordinary tasks and plans, but God calls us to more. Might we gaze beyond ourselves and see burdens we could carry? Are we willing to be pulled from our daily routines and thrust into something bigger than ourselves? Are we surrendered enough to get dirty and soiled and participate in redemption?

Culture exalts power and independence, but Christ-followers are called to journey deeper into self-denial, positioning others’ needs over our own. Friend, let’s stay faithful amidst the brokenness. Let’s serve at a moment’s notice, gazing ahead to the purpose God has ordained for us.

Like Simon of Cyrene, let’s follow.