Jesus Christ, high and lifted up in his death and resurrection, stands alone as the object of our praise. With Him as our focus, we are united together as a global church as we follow him in faith.
Even in His final moments on the cross, Jesus was seeking and saving the lost. The penitent thief had nothing to offer but guilt and shame, but when combine with the mercy of Christ it was all that he needed. So it is with every believer saved by grace. Our sin and inability are the gateway to eternal life through faith in the One who died for us.
Despite being completely innocent, the Lord Jesus was cruelly despised before His death. Yet even when being nailed to the cross, He prayed for His enemies. Such a prayer of grace leaves us in awe of our Savior and draws us to Him in faith.
Jesus’ road to the cross was excruciating. Our English word “excruciate” actually comes from a Latin word meaning “out of the cross.” Yet even in such a weakened state, our Lord’s focus was not on Himself but on those He came to save. Even the road to the cross is a road of grace for everyone who looks to Him in faith.
There is no starker example of injustice than when Jesus, completely innocent, was condemned to die, while Barabbas, guilty of murder, was set free. Everything within us screams that such a thing should not be! Yet, it must be if we are to be saved. Only the spotless Lamb of God could die in the place of sinners like us so that we might be forgiven before God. The innocent must die for the guilty so that the guilty might live for the glory of the One who set them free."
2 Chronicles 25 says that King Amaziah 'did what was right in the eyes of the Lord, yet not with a whole heart.' After a brief period of faithfulness, he soon turned away to worship other gods, then refused to listen to opportunities to repent. As a result, he was dealt with according to the same law he had acknowledged in his early years: 'each one shall die for his own sin.' Likewise, our obedience and love for God are half-hearted, but if we repent and trust in the death of Christ for our sins, we will not die, but live.
Even the most coordinated efforts by unbelieving powers cannot thwart the plan of God, but only advance it. The Lord Jesus stood before the greatest powers of His day, undaunted and undeterred, so that through His silent submission He might purchase our lives for God.
Throughout the Gospel of John, Jesus mentions his hour—which refers to his suffering, death, and also his glorification. Jesus knows the horror and agony that will come with this hour. Here, in John 12, like in Gethsemane, he asks, if possible, to be saved from what is coming in his crucifixion. Yet he also knows that this hour is precisely why he has come. Jesus is going to carry out the will of God, even to the bitter end. As a result, the Father will be glorified. He will be glorified in the completion of his gracious plan that throughout centuries was leading to this moment. He will be glorified in the salvation of an innumerable host of sinners, planned in eternity past before anything else existed. He will be glorified in the glory of the Son, and in his church that will form and grow.
Though He was the Lord and Judge of all the earth, Jesus allowed Himself to be brutally mistreated and unjustly tried before sinful men. He did so in our place, so that we who are guilty of sin might be forgiven through faith in His work on the cross. Even during His corrupt trial, Jesus’ faithful testimony to His own Divinity showed the way to eternal life for all who would trust in Him.
Many say that the purpose of our life is to prepare for our death. Genesis, the book that opens with the beginning of all life closes with the death of one of its main characters. At 110 years old, Joseph dies, but not without prophesying his family’s eventual return to Canaan, the land which the Lord had promised to Abraham three generations before Joseph’s birth.