Becoming Sin

The Passover celebrates how God's angel of death passed over each house having blood on its threshold during the last plague in Egypt. Only by the blood of the sacrificial lamb were they saved from death. In case you may not be aware of it, when Jesus went on the cross he represented a sacrificial lamb and the establishing of a new covenant with God.

Jewish Jewels does an incredible job of explaining the covenants and how Jesus made a one-sided covenant with humanity. His covenant made it possible for all people, not just the nation of Israel, to have hope and access to God. I cannot imagine my life without God. Can you? Jesus did that for me. . .for all of us.

But to give me that hope, Jesus who lived a sinless life had to become sin. How did dying on a cross do that? Well, way back in the Old Testament, in Deuteronomy 21, the instructions given include a man who died on a tree would be cursed, in other words become sinful.

Not only did Jesus become sinful the moment they nailed him to that cross, but he was humiliated in the process. Stripped of his clothes in front of people who knew him and didn't know him. And, he was placed along a road traveled by all the people entering the city for the Passover preparations. That's why passersby could shout insults at him. One of my pastors even mentioned crosses often being placed so that the person was just off the ground, allowing the people insulting the accused to get up in their face as the shouted the insult.

But it didn't stop there. Did you know that the Romans took pleasure in crucifying Jews in a cemetery? I didn't. According to A Visual Guide to Bible Events Jesus was crucified in a cemetery. Those standing by him would have been considered as ritually unclean by the pharisees.

And don't believe some of the depictions of the crucifixion. Yes he had a crown of thorns on his head, but many pictures of Jesus forget the one word in Matthew 27 and Mark 15 that tells us the rest of the story. . . scourged, or flogged. Jesus was stripped of his clothes then given lashes with a flagellum which could kill a man if he was whipped enough times. (Flagellums, in case you didn't know, were a multi-strapped leather whip that had metal and bone tied or embedded in the straps. That thing could rip open a man's skin and expose the rib cage. Not a pretty sight.) And he did this for me and you.

The last thing the Romans did actually backfired on the Sanhedrin. In their attempt to further humiliate Jesus and demean the Jewish people the Roman guard placed a plaque on the cross written in three languages, which said Jesus of Nazareth, The King of the Jews. Here's a curious thing. I was once told that the way the lettering lined up, it spelled the name of God. The Romans in essence were stating that God was being crucified. That was one of the reasons the Sanhedrin were up in arms.

Perhaps some of them came to believe in Jesus as the Messiah, and regretted their decision to have him crucified. Perhaps others begged God's forgiveness when the curtain that had divided a sinless God from a sinful people was torn from the top down the moment Jesus died. Perhaps Peter and Paul helped their family members to see the sin of their fathers and walk away from it.

I hate what Jesus had to go through. It breaks my heart that man would be so guilty of sin that Jesus had to be beaten and punished in such a graphic and brutal manner. But if ever there was a true picture of something bad happening so that something wonderfully good could come of it, this is it.

Jesus had to die on a cross to become cursed and guilty of sin which would send him to hell. But in his righteousness and because he was God he created a pathway out of there. If you choose his path before you die, you don't have to stay where punishment is given. When your time on earth ends, you can pass hell and go directly to heaven, where the streets and buildings are made of the finest and purest gems. Where joy and celebration take place everyday. Where love can be found in its most complete form.

Thank you Jesus for loving us.