It is nearly the ninth hour. Can you hear the cry? It comes distantly from a cross, “Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?”
Crucifixion (Photo credit: Creativity+ Timothy K Hamilton)
It is the cry of great agony. For some this Aramaic plea sharply pierces the heart. For others, it brings jabs of insults and hollow jests. For all, it brings the acknowledgement of the severest of pain and that a cruel death is nearing its end.
The plea from the cross is, “Why?” The words resound with innocence, as though the one in torture is being wrongly punished. It is the words of the lonely and the deserted. He has watched his closest friends abandon him, and now his cry is to his Father, “My God, My God, why are you forsaking me?”
The darkness has filled the land for three hours. More mockery takes place from below the cross. Then the one in agony cries again, “It is finished,” and he dies.
It is only then that the questioning cry receives a response from above. The earth begins to quake, rocks shift and burst, and tombs give up their dead. With seemingly no influence, a curtain is torn. Its tear starts from up high… and violently continues until it reveals what has never been seen by the masses.
Why was He forsaken by His Father and God? The symbolic picture of what happened on that day was best demonstrated by our God as He tore down what veiled us from Him. As crowds looked with trembling fear into what was once sacred, a soldier pierced the side of the true Holy of Holies. It was my sin that brought about that cry toward heaven. It was the agonizing death on Christ’s Cross that bid me come into the presence of the Holy.
etv2020
ין חנה
Karen
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rickroehm
setyourpathsstraight
Steve Sawyer
wayneman
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It was for ME my Saviour died.
It was for ME that He was separated from His Father for the only time in eternity. The Father could not look upon sin – MY sin, that He was bearing. It was for ME that God poured out His wrath on His Son who took MY punishment for me.
In the words of Frances Ridley Havergal . . .
Thy life was given for me.
Thy blood, O Lord, was shed
That I might ransomed be
And quickened from the dead.
Thy life was givewn for me.
What shall I give to Thee?
Thou Lord, hast borne for me
More than my tongue can tell
Of bitterest agony
To rescue me from hell.
Thou suffered all for me:
What have I borne for Thee?
O Let my life be given,
My years for Thee be spent;
World fetters all be riven
And joy with suffering blent.
Thou gav’st Thyself for me:
I give myself to Thee.
God’s plan for humanity.
Hebrews 9:15-17…And for this cause he is the mediator of the new testament, that by means of death, for the redemption of the transgressions that were under the first testament, they which are called might receive the promise of eternal inheritance. For where a testament is, there must also of necessity be the death of the testator. For a testament is of force after men are dead: otherwise it is of no strength at all while the testator liveth.
Hebrews 10: 9…Then said he, Lo, I come to do thy will, O God. He taketh away the first, that he may establish the second.
Amazing love
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