The Cross

John 19:14-16

"Here is your king," Pilate said to the Jews.
But they shouted, "Take him away! Take him away! Crucify him!"
"Shall I crucify your king?" Pilate asked.
"We have no king but Caesar," the chief priests answered.
Finally Pilate handed him over to them to be crucified. So the soldiers took charge of Jesus.

The cross is a well-known symbol of Christianity. We see it often, but do we really remember its significance when we look at it?

Since I wasn’t an eyewitness to the crucifixion of Jesus, I have to rely on the accounts in the Bible and try to imagine what Jesus went through for me. From what I read, it was an ugly, messy scene. The real cross was nothing like the sanitized version we put in our art. It feels truly awful to imagine myself standing there on that day, watching an innocent man going through the torture that was rightfully mine.

In Hebrews 9:22, we find that “the law requires that nearly everything be cleansed with blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness.” Without the cross of Christ, we are hopeless.

But Jesus knew it was necessary. He knew the one thing standing between us and our freedom was that cross. He knew he couldn’t back out. I’m so glad Jesus was willing to go all the way to the cross for me that day.

Now I can reflect on the cross as part of the victory Jesus gives to all who come to him. We are no longer slaves to sin, but because of the blood of Jesus and because of the cross, we are overcomers. As it tells us in Revelation 12:11 “They overcame him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony; they did not love their lives so much as to shrink from death.”

Not only does the cross have significant impact on our eternity, it also affects our daily lives on this planet. Because of the cross, we have access to the powerful blood of Jesus which helps us live for God right now. Hebrews 9:14 reads, “How much more, then, will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself unblemished to God, cleanse our consciences from acts that lead to death, so that we may serve the living God!”