Jesus’s death on the cross of Calvary made forgiveness possible for me.
We are sinners. No matter how good or bad we individually see ourselves, we are all in the same boat: facing a death we deserve because of sin. No amount of self-rehabilitation will correct that because a sinner cannot remove his own sin. But Christ can—and did. God Himself became a man. As a man, Jesus never sinned. When He died, He had no sin of His own to atone for, so He took our sin upon Himself. Jesus’s death sets us free from our sins.
THE PASSAGE
John 19:16-19,28-30,38-42
THE SETTINGS
Jewish leaders had Jesus arrested and brought to the Sanhedrin so they could question Him. After they found Him guilty of blasphemy, they turned Him over to Pilate to be crucified. Pilate interrogated Jesus thoroughly and concluded He was innocent. Even so, the Jewish leaders insisted that Jesus had to be crucified. Pilate had Jesus scourged, and the soldiers placed a crown of thorns on His head. Relentless, the Jewish leaders continued to demand His crucifixion.
THE POINT
Jesus’s death on the cross made forgiveness possible for me
We often fool ourselves into thinking we are better at something than we really are. If we enjoy doing something, we assume we are fairly good at it. This doesn’t just apply to hobbies or jobs; we often apply this to the whole of life. We think we are better people than we are. We assume we are better behaved than most of the people we know. The problem is we aren’t, and the Bible makes that clear: we are sinners. In fact, when we compare ourselves to Jesus, our best is completely inadequate. But through Jesus, we also have hope!
When Jesus left heaven and took on flesh, He came with one end in mind: the cross. He knew the cross was the culmination of His earthly ministry. Jesus declared this in John 17:4: “I have glorified thee on the earth: I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do.” Even as He endured the suffering and pain of the cross, He knew “that all things were now accomplished.” He understood what was happening. He was about to die, and when He did, His blood would be the covering for our sins.
Even Jesus’s thirst was a part of what the Father intended for His Son to finish. The psalmist wrote in Psalm 69:21, “They gave me also gall for my meat; and in my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink.” By declaring His thirst, Jesus was fulfilling what had been prophesied about the Messiah. Not only are we reminded of Jesus’s humanity during this simple request, but we are assured of His divinity in that He fulfilled the prophecies of Scripture, even in His death.
