Holy Week

"My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass away from me. Yet, not as I will, but as you will." Matthew 26:39

“This man was handed over to you by God's set purpose and foreknowledge; and you, with the help of wicked men, put him to death by nailing him to the cross.” Acts 2:23

"For He made Him who knew no sin, to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him." 2 Corinthians 5:12

Remember a few years ago the outcry caused by Mel Gibson’s film about Jesus Christ’s Passion? Some commentators branded the graphic violence as over the top. Well, I recall wincing at a number of the scenes depicting the Passion, but I also feel the film made me appreciate that much more the extreme degree to which God loves us and yearns for us to be reconciled to Him. That’s the whole point of Lent and its culmination in Easter: Christ as a sin offering so we have the hope of being reconciled and an eternal life in relationship with the Father.

So, probably like a number of people, for a long time I used to (incorrectly) interpret Matthew 26:39 as Jesus pleading to be spared that horrible physical torture and death. But Acts 2:23 and 2 Corinthians 5:12 make it crystal clear that this horrible physical torture and death that Jesus suffered to reconcile us to God was destined to be precisely so we would have hope of an eternal relationship with God. The plea in Matthew 26:39 then would be the acknowledgement that, by becoming a sin offering for all of humanity, Jesus would be estranged from the Father (the definition of the experience of Hell) until His resurrection.

Easter is a reminder of how much we have to be grateful for.