Lent 35. Jesus: Crucified
Lent gives us time to reflect on the values that make Christ our role model as well as our Savior and Lord.
If you're looking for a radical act of love, here it is. A man lives a perfect life. He is a role model of God's nature - perfectly kind, disciplined, loving, joy-filled, relational, and good.
Which would irritate or flighten almost anyone comparing him/herself to him. None of us could be that righteous. In fact, he makes some people so uncomfortable that they have him killed.
By dying, he takes our sentence of death and pays it ... in full. The justice of God is satisfied: the only perfect one has died for all imperfect persons.
"I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.
I do not set aside the grace of God, for if righteousness could be gained through the law, Christ died for nothing!" (Galatians 2:20-21 NIV)
When we identify with that death and accept it as our own, we are obligated to live a new way in the shadow of the cross. Our alignment is no longer other people ("I'm slightly better than him in this area;" "I'd never do what she does").
Our focus shifts to freedom. We are released from old patterns and habits to new ways of thinking, feeling, and living. The sins that weigh us down are gone - so we may choose to live a new life.
For we died and were buried with Christ by baptism. And just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glorious power of the Father, now we also may live new lives. (Romans 6:4)
SELF-ASSESSMENT: Have I identified with Jesus? Am I willing to let the past die in order to live out my calling to be fully human - fully alive? Or am I stuck in pleasant patterns of destruction?
How can I commit myself fully to do what God is asking of me, to live life to the full today?
--- JESUS IS CRUCIFIED ---
If you're looking for a radical act of love, here it is. A man lives a perfect life. He is a role model of God's nature - perfectly kind, disciplined, loving, joy-filled, relational, and good.
Which would irritate or flighten almost anyone comparing him/herself to him. None of us could be that righteous. In fact, he makes some people so uncomfortable that they have him killed.
By dying, he takes our sentence of death and pays it ... in full. The justice of God is satisfied: the only perfect one has died for all imperfect persons.
"I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.
I do not set aside the grace of God, for if righteousness could be gained through the law, Christ died for nothing!" (Galatians 2:20-21 NIV)
When we identify with that death and accept it as our own, we are obligated to live a new way in the shadow of the cross. Our alignment is no longer other people ("I'm slightly better than him in this area;" "I'd never do what she does").
Our focus shifts to freedom. We are released from old patterns and habits to new ways of thinking, feeling, and living. The sins that weigh us down are gone - so we may choose to live a new life.
For we died and were buried with Christ by baptism. And just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glorious power of the Father, now we also may live new lives. (Romans 6:4)
SELF-ASSESSMENT: Have I identified with Jesus? Am I willing to let the past die in order to live out my calling to be fully human - fully alive? Or am I stuck in pleasant patterns of destruction?
How can I commit myself fully to do what God is asking of me, to live life to the full today?
