Jump Start # 3780
Matthew 27:50 “And Jesus cried out again with a loud voice, and yielded up His spirit.”
There is a line in the hymn, “My eyes have seen Your glory,” that really caught my attention the other day when we were singing it in worship. It’s a beautiful hymn. In the second verse, “In my heart I crumbled when I watched you die,” has so much meaning. I thought of that from the standpoint of the few who stood at a distance at the cross. They saw the bloodied and beaten Jesus being lifted up. The tortuous image must have made them look away, but they couldn’t keep from looking. Somehow Jesus would get out of this, they must have thought. He always had before. Rocks had been picked up to be thrown at Him, yet He got away from that. An angry crowd pushed Him to a cliff to shove Him over, but He got away. He always got away. He was the Lord.
And, as the moments slipped away, surely He’ll come off the cross. He has to come off the cross. The Romans can’t win. These unbelieving Jews can’t win. He’ll show them. He’ll come off the cross and everything will be ok. But, as the minutes passed, He was getting weaker. Nothing was happening. He cries out, “It is finished,” and then He utters, “Father, into Your hands I commit My spirit.” His head drops to His chest. His eyes close. There is no movement. We intently stare at His chest, hoping to see it expand with another breath. The chest doesn’t move. There is a stillness. We step closer and we realize that He has died. Jesus has really died. A soldier thrust a spear upward into His side. Blood and water come out. The body didn’t move. He was dead.
At that moment, we are filled with confusion, fear and doubt. What will happen now? He was so good. He always helped others. Why? Why did they have to kill Him? What He said was so wonderful. He made us feel loved and put things in our hearts that were so true. We want to do something, but what can we do? We begin to feel ashamed for not standing up for Him. Maybe there would have been a different outcome.
The crowd stands in silence. Jesus has died. How could this be. And, now the tears begin flowing down our cheeks. We walk with the rest of the crowd away from the cross. We feel so empty and numb. We keep looking back, hoping something will happen. We just can’t believe all of this. He has really died. The only place we know to go to is home, but we don’t feel like going there. We don’t feel like eating. We don’t feel like talking. We just can’t believe that Jesus has died. Why didn’t the Father save Him? All of this was so good and right. Is it over? Who will lead us now? All the apostles feel lost. No one seems to know what to do.
We don’t feel like going back to the way things were before we met Jesus. We don’t want to do anything. We keep wondering if all of this is a bad dream. He can’t be dead, could He.
Such must have been “the crumbled heart” feeling of those few who saw Jesus die. You and I have the complete story of the cross. We understand the reasons why He had to die. We know what happens in a few days. We know Jesus as the resurrected Savior. But for those believers who watched Him die, what a different experience it was for them.
Some thoughts for us:
First, Jesus died. He really died. We understand this Biblically and factually, but putting yourself there at the cross, would have been something hard to fathom. As we focus upon the Lord’s Supper each week, let’s not forget that our Lord died. We celebrate the resurrection, but let us not forget the sorrow of His death. I have seen some dear, dear people take their last breath. I know the emptiness at looking at a lifeless body and hoping that there would be one more breath.
Second, we can think that those early believers were simple and naïve in their thinking about Jesus. The Lord had said several times that He was going to die and be raised. We read those passages with certainty and that is because we are on this side of the story. They were on the other side of the story and it was hard to put together everything that Jesus had said. Things were so good, it’s hard to imagine that it would ever end, but it did.
Third, and, to think He did all of this for you. He did all of this for me. Jesus cared so much for you that He gave His life. The greatest sacrifice of all. He died so we could live. What greater motivation to walk with the Lord than seeing by faith His death. How quickly we would admit that we don’t deserve His death. How easily we would confess that we are not that important. But to Jesus you are. Your life was worth His death.
My heart crumbled when I watched you die…
Roger