Jesus cried out for His Father in Heaven to rescue Him. Christ, being fully God, understood that it would have been a simple task to bring a miraculous rescue to this excruciating circumstance. Yet, the Hand of God stayed. Jesus would die on the cross. The consequences of sin would fall on Him. The Father sent the Son explicitly for this purpose. Mankind would be better for it.
Jesus cried out for His Father in Heaven to rescue Him. Christ, being fully God, understood that it would have been a simple task to bring a miraculous rescue to this excruciating circumstance. Yet, the Hand of God stayed. Jesus would die on the cross. The consequences of sin would fall on Him. The Father sent the Son explicitly for this purpose. Mankind would be better for it.
Parents are not supposed to bury their children. This situation, more so than the rest, was not supposed to happen. Innocent are not supposed to be punished. Gods are not supposed to be killed. Jesus understood that His mission and goals were expressly different than how the world expected Him to be and do. He simply could not leave without caring for Mary and ensuring that she would be taken care of. Thus, He looked to John, the Beloved, to care for Mary as he would his own mother. Through the crucifixion of Jesus Christ, the two would be bound together not as acquaintances or friends, but as family cares for one another.
People have different reactions to encountering the King of Kings. Furthermore, this situation showed itself to be particularly unique. There, two criminals hung surrounding the Savior. The consequences of the first criminal’s crimes had caught up to him and drove him to insanity. He mocked Jesus, an innocent man dying the death of a guilty man. The second, though, responded differently. He chastised the first criminal and sought to gain the attention of Jesus. For everything he was going through, the second criminal saw the face of an innocent man, but even more so, he saw the face of the Savior of mankind.
He was crucified that day, a particularly brutal and bloody process. All of this having been whipped, beaten, and bloodied long before His crucifixion. No one could bring any true charge against Him and instead levied lies and falsehoods as the means of His judgment. When it came time to crucify Him, he was placed in between two criminals, the people seeing Christ as nothing more than a mere criminal. There, the mocking and pain continued. Yet, it was the response of Jesus that stunned the crowd and epitomized the mission that Jesus came to complete.
As the famed teacher had finishing speaking, he looks directly at Peter and told him cast out his nets. How could this be? They had been fishing all night and caught nothing of any substance for their evenings work. There were simply no fish. While Peter protested he still remaining obedient to the words of Jesus Christ. They made no sense to a fisherman, but to a God, the catch was merely an act of obedience. While he acted in obedience, the results were beyond the expectation of Peter’s imagination.
At the end of time, we will arrive at the beginning of our eternity. Everything that God has done throughout the course of mankind has sought to return humanity to eternity with Him. Out of love, Christ made a way for our salvation, for our redemption, and for our sanctification. All of this in order that we would rest in eternity in the ecstatic presence of God. There is no area that God showed himself to be unsuccessful and no action that was not accounted for before hand. Jesus Christ was slain before the foundation of the world and heaven will collide with earth in pursuit of the people of God.
At the beginning of Exodus, the situation appeared fairly bleak for the Israelites. Enslaved and held captive by the power-hungry Pharaoh, the Israelites were facing their death and oppression. And God heard their prayers. He sent Moses and gave him specific instructions on how to handle the release of His people. In faith, Moses and the Israelites followed God and were saved. During their plight in the desert, as the people feared for their safety, the Lord provided for them in miraculous ways. Again, in faith, Moses and the people of God followed instructions for their own salvation.
Ezekiel 37, with its familiarity causes us to glaze over the full depth of the passage. We often are able to intellectually understand the idea of dry bones will rise and walk again. We picture images of skeletons standing up like cheap halloween specials but miss the significance of where we are in this story. As God shows Ezekiel the dry bones, God asks “Can these dry bones live?” Ezekiel while answering God, undoubtedly came to the same understanding and fear that we all face. We come to understand that we are the dry bones and fear that the answer is no.
God had met His people on Mount Sinai. He did not join them through metaphor or representation, but the presence of God descended from heaven on Mount Sinai. This divine invasion had spurned and annoyed the broken world that ceased being righteous long ago. As God’s presence came near, the very earth groaned in the expectation of perfection that would soon be coming. The mountain smoked. There was thunder and lightning. The righteous God had come to an unrighteous world for the salvation and blessing of His people.
