Lest We Forget...Ever

Lest We Forget...Ever

Lk.23: 53 And he took it down, and wrapped it in linen, and laid it in a sepulchre that was hewn in stone, wherein never man before was laid.
Jesus was dead. The One who brought so much healing and joy to people had succumbed to the vicious assault of wicked hands. His body was worn and battered, His eyes were swollen shut, and he was covered in His own blood. Lifeless He hangs, His heart beats no more. The entire vision is repellent to the normal human senses. This was no quick and easy death; this was a brutal torture. And now He is gone.
No memorial ceremony. No eulogies. No flowers. Nothing at all.
He who was without sin bowed to death because of our sin. Do not attempt to sanitize this scene and this event. Do not suppose our Creator cannot feel. And just because He knows the beginning from the end, do not believe the Father felt nothing. He is not some impersonal power that exists without feeling or emotion. Yes, He is a mystery, but He has pulled back the veil ever so slightly so that we might know of Him and indeed know Him.
But since His power and knowledge are infinite, why do we relegate His feelings to less than they deserve? Is it because we cannot bear to even think of it, much less reach down into our spirits and imagine what the Father felt as He watched the body of His Son being taken down from that cruel tree? Gad had loved Adam, and now His descendents had murdered His only begotten Son. Do you believe God was busy with the stars? Was He preoccupied with the angels? Of course I speak as a fool.
No, in a colossal mystery that must have shaken creation itself, God feels divine emotions for His Son. Yes the Father sees the coming resurrection, but that cannot block His feelings for the Son. As the Son has loved the Father, so the Father loves the Son. It is quite beyond us, but it is true nonetheless. We know a little of those three days in the grave, but surely we do not know fully what happened. Dare we discount any mystery and protest that we know everything? Dare we present God as an aloof deity Who cares nothing but for He Himself? And if we must present Him as such, then we must tear out the New Testament since it makes any such suggestions as lies.
I cannot in my own mind, much less in my own words, adequately, fully, and with the glory due His name reveal the completeness of His Person, but just the glimpses we have been given should saturate the spirit and fill the heart to overflowing! And to think that the first moment we lay our spirit eyes upon Him will soar way beyond all that we knew and thought we knew about Him. Reserved only for His redeemed, the beauty, majesty, and glory will be revealed for all eternity. Who can know it?
But lest we forget or pack it away in some dusty, doctrinal box, Jesus died. The thing that frightens mankind most was taken for us. Not a moment of discomfort, but a profound experience of eternal death suffered for His very enemies. Oh yes, not just a biological death that we all must face, but an unfathomable and expansive death placed upon this Lamb for all mankind. Again, who can know it?
And as they take Him down from that wooden altar, they bring Him to the borrowed tomb. The stone is pushed into place, and the place is deserted except for some soldiers that guard His lifeless frame.
It is finished. The resurrection is coming, but we can never forget what He has accomplished. He died for us. So easy to say. The words flow so freely and can be spoken while reading a newspaper. But that truth should move us, and imprison us, every moment of every day.
God died. God died for us. Sad and yet thrilling. Tragic and yet victorious. Horrific and yet beautiful. And one day, one unimaginable day, those who embraced that death will be engulfed in the eternal reality which is His everlasting glory. Again and again and again - who can know it? On that day we will know even as we are known. Worthy is the Lamb that was slain!!