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| https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3e/Marco_ palmezzano%2C_crocifissione_degli_Uffizi.jpg |
As such then I won't add to the already mix of papers that surround these two days but instead encourage you to go to reputable sources to find out the truth that surrounds this weekend of love and why it is in deed a time of love. I have listed a couple of trustworthy resources below to aid you in your journey in the Christian faith and all of its claims.
However I would like to ask this one question: What was Jesus' real sacrifice? The Christian claim is that Jesus suffered a horrible physical death on the cross on Friday and then on the Sunday, He rose from the dead. These two events paid the penalty that you and I owed God for breaking His laws and conquered the effects of eternal death. However on the Friday was it just His life that He 'gave up'? No. The apostle Paul argues:
[Who], although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men. Being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. (Philippians 2:6-8)
Paul argues that the first real sacrifice Jesus made is celebrated in North America on December 25: Christmas. That is the very act of coming down as human, not in human form, as if He wore a human costume, but as a natural human being. Paul's word homoiōma[i] (ὁμοίωμα) (Philippians 2:7) translated in English as "the likeness"holds the notion of something being that something. The logical law of identity states that something is that something, e.g. an apple is an apple, it is not a pear or a banana, it is an apple. In the same way then Jesus is human. This was for God in the literal sense a natural demotion as He is much better than humans.
Jesus was naturally divine, and thus He had the right to demand that others identify Him as divine just as much as He had the right to act on His divine nature. Did Jesus then give up His glory? In the applicable sense, yes. Before He was arrested Jesus is recorded praying to His, Father: "glorify Me together with Yourself, with the glory which I had with You before the world was," (John 17:5) (my emphasis). Jesus always had the glory at His fingertips, but He willingly put it aside in exchange for abuse, rejection and death for the sin of the slave of sin. In sum Jesus became the target for hatred by humans and the object of His, Father's wrath, instead of the slave to sin who was the one who is truly deserving of His, Father's wrath.
These sacrifices are what He made. He gave up His right to act on His glory, something that was rightfully His and the right for easy and automatic justice, as he could have, if He wanted to, destroyed us all in the fires of Hell. He didn't need to save anyone! The earthbound, physical and sociological suffering that He endured was how it was materialized in His life here on earth. Why did He pay for the penalty for our sins the way He did? Great question! I'll leave the answer for another day. All we need to do today is reflect on his sacrifice for you and me.
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[i] - https://www.blueletterbible.org/nasb/phl/2/1/t_conc_1105007
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Resources
- faithbeyondbelief.ca
- The Case For the Resurrection of Jesus
