Amazing Love
6 min read
29 Those who passed by hurled insults at him, shaking their heads and saying, “So! You who are going to destroy the temple and build it in three days, 30 come down from the cross and save yourself!” 31 In the same way the chief priests and the teachers of the law mocked him among themselves. “He saved others,” they said, “but he can’t save himself! 32 Let this Messiah, this king of Israel, come down now from the cross, that we may see and believe.” Those crucified with him also heaped insults on him.
—Mark 15:29-32
Passersby, the Jewish authorities, and even those who were crucified with Jesus were mocking Him as He was slowly and painfully dying on the cross.
The irony is quite deep here, too. Because out of all humanity, only Jesus would have been able to come down off of that cross, as they were taunting Him to do. But if He had exercised His divine power and done that, every single one of those mockers would, then, have absolutely no hope of salvation from hell. And besides, even if He did come down from the cross, they still would not have believed.
Of course, they didn’t actually want to see Him come down. The mockers took a sick pleasure in seeing Him suffer and bleed and suffocate to death on the cross, not understanding that it was their sick pleasure in seeing an innocent man being tortured to death that sent Him to the cross in the first place. Their sick pleasure reflects the sickness of sin that is in every person’s heart.
By going to the cross, God gave humanity what our evil hearts delight in—a great, bloody spectacle that ends in someone else’s humiliation and destruction. That is why freeways get backed up when an accident happens on the other side of the freeway. That is why so many dying churches are filled with people just sitting around waiting for the next big scandalous drama to erupt. They never get out of their seats until the drama starts to unfold. But when it does, they suddenly find a renewed passion in their hearts. They start to furiously fan the flames of any tiny little spark.
Sorry for being so dark here. But the cross exposes all the darkness in this world and in our hearts. In my own heart.
By the grace of God, the Holy Spirit has helped me to see this darkness in my own heart. By the grace of God, the cross tells me that, despite the darkness in my heart, He loves me still.
He didn’t come down. He suffered and stayed until “It is finished” (John 19:30).
So that all of my sins would be atoned for. So that He might have sweet and love-filled fellowship with me, a wretched sinner.
It is the kindness and unconditional love, mercy, and grace of God that leads me to repentance.
Amazing Love. How can it be? That You my King would die for me? Amazing Love. I know it’s true. It’s my joy to honor You. I don’t honor You in all I do. And yet You stayed up on the cross because of Your Love for me. How amazing.
Father, Your love, mercy, and grace are powerful beyond words. Your love, mercy, and grace are beyond human comprehension sometimes. But help me to know it and experience it deep in my heart, so that the fullness of Your love may abound and overflow in me and through me. In Jesus’s name. Amen.