The women sat around the table, grappling with the impossible, the inconceivable, the unimaginable and their hearts twisted, their stomachs clenched, their minds spun. Okay, maybe the other women didn't feel that way, but I did. It was lesson seventeen of eighteen on the book of Mark and, once again, I marveled at Jesus' journey to and through the cross.
We discussed the courage of Peter and John in the courtyard, the physical abuse and the betrayal Jesus endured, but could not get past the fact that God Himself bore our sin, that the Godhead was rent. How could the one who said, "I am the resurrection and the life," become unrighteousness and death?
And I realized that we, the created beings, live in a state of death. Until God draws us and quickens us, there is no spiritual life (Ephesians 2:1). We begin as small babes with little awareness of the world around us and grow, day by day, as we are fed and nurtured into fullness of life (John 10:10). Jesus was life. The Author of life. The Giver of life. The Fullness of life. And He, bearing my sin, gave up that spiritual life, what He was, what He had always been. There is no level of human comprehension to span that distance.
Then we, dead, naked corpses that we are, claim that God died for all, that we will all join Him in paradise, that we can live as we choose and take the rot to heaven where God will miraculously transform unrepentant hearts into joyous rapturous ones that continue to seek their own pleasure. Not so. We must come. We must fall on our faces, acknowledging our sin and fallenness and asking for His mercy and forgiveness. We choose to take the life He gives and live daily in the dual body of death vs. life until this body is left behind and we, too, experience His presence in its fullness. We would still be dead. We deserve nothing more....
But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), and raised us up together, and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, that in the ages to come He might show the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast. For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them. (Ephesians 2:4-10).
We discussed the courage of Peter and John in the courtyard, the physical abuse and the betrayal Jesus endured, but could not get past the fact that God Himself bore our sin, that the Godhead was rent. How could the one who said, "I am the resurrection and the life," become unrighteousness and death?
And I realized that we, the created beings, live in a state of death. Until God draws us and quickens us, there is no spiritual life (Ephesians 2:1). We begin as small babes with little awareness of the world around us and grow, day by day, as we are fed and nurtured into fullness of life (John 10:10). Jesus was life. The Author of life. The Giver of life. The Fullness of life. And He, bearing my sin, gave up that spiritual life, what He was, what He had always been. There is no level of human comprehension to span that distance.
Then we, dead, naked corpses that we are, claim that God died for all, that we will all join Him in paradise, that we can live as we choose and take the rot to heaven where God will miraculously transform unrepentant hearts into joyous rapturous ones that continue to seek their own pleasure. Not so. We must come. We must fall on our faces, acknowledging our sin and fallenness and asking for His mercy and forgiveness. We choose to take the life He gives and live daily in the dual body of death vs. life until this body is left behind and we, too, experience His presence in its fullness. We would still be dead. We deserve nothing more....
But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), and raised us up together, and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, that in the ages to come He might show the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast. For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them. (Ephesians 2:4-10).
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