Suffering, Death, Redemption

As Good Friday approaches we should be thinking more about the way Jesus suffered for us and eventually gave up His life for us.

Jesus was tortured and humiliated.  He took the mocking, the crown of thorns, beatings, flogging, bearing the cross, and then came the crucifixion.

Then came the crucifixion: crude and jagged nails like railroad spikes were driven into his wrists and feet.    His body was lifted up on the cross so that he would hang and suffocate, and then have to inch his body up to catch breath.

The thought of the suffering and pain of our Lord helps us to appreciate the price paid for us.  But it is not just the physical pain that Jesus suffered.  It also speaks of a greater price of his soul.  We often think of the blood that he shed, but think now of the blood running through his heart which was broken and guilty of the sins of the world.

the price He paid was awesome.  If you want to listen to Sunday’s sermon in it’s entirety, you can visit the sermon page on the website or click the play below.

Below is from Spurgeon’s “Bought with a Price” that helped me (emphasis mine)

We speak of the drops of blood, but we must not confine our thoughts to the crimson life-floods which distilled from the Savior’s veins; we must think of the pangs which he endured, which were the equivalent for what we ought to have suffered, what we must have suffered had we endured the punishment of our guilt for ever in the flames of hell. But pain alone could not have redeemed us; it was by death that the Savior paid the ransom.

Death is a word of horror to the ungodly. The righteous hath hope in his death; but as Christ’s death was the substitute for the death of the ungodly, he was made a curse for us, and the presence of God was denied him. His death was attended with unusual darkness; he cried, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” O think ye earnestly on this. The Ever-living died to redeem us; the Only Begotten bowed his head in agony, and was laid in the grave that we might be saved.