The Longest Day

“Men are opposed to God in their sin, and God is opposed to them in his holiness.” 

-J. I. Packer

Today we enter the life of Jesus and find him at the end of the most horrendous day in history. Several long hours before, as this day was just beginning, we find him kneeling in a garden and beginning to be “gripped by a shuddering terror and anguish.” Sorrow. Horror. Dismay. This is not the Jesus we are used to reading about throughout the gospels, healing and wittingly challenging his adversaries. This is a Jesus who tells his disciples his “soul is sorrowful, even unto death!”

Hours before he cries out, “It is finished!” we find that he came close to death in that garden, weeping and sweating great drops of blood, as he pondered what was to come. Why? His own words answer this question. “Abba, Father, all things are possible for you. Remove this cup from me. Yet, not what I will, but what you will.” What is this cup? Isaiah 51:7 paints a picture of God holding out this cup - this “cup of his wrath.” This cup contains the full and overwhelming fierceness of God’s wrath against all human sin and rebellion... It’s a cup we are all meant to drink from. The Old Testament vividly portrays this cup as filled with “fire and sulfur and a scorching wind” - a most terrifying picture. As C. J. Mahaney points out, “What Jesus recoils from here is not an anticipation of the physical pain associated with crucifixion. Rather it’s a pain infinitely greater-the agony of being abandoned by His Father.” As Jesus pleads with his Father repeatedly, his hope for solace is met with silence. His fate is sealed. As he chooses to follow his Father’s will in this final act of perfectly-righteous obedience, he will lift the cup to his lips and drink from the fires of hell itself. He will drink every drop from the furious wrath of God against sin - He will become sin (who never knew sin), trading places with us, as he is crushed by righteous wrath of the Father in our place.

Between this agonizing moment in the garden and his final words on the cross, lie an entire day filled with trials and false accusations, screaming and spitting, beating and bludgeoning, and the final few excruciating hours here on the cross as he hangs stretched out between heaven and earth. He pulls the symbolic cup to his lips and drinks the cup down to the last drop - not leaving a drop for you and I. With that, he breathes his last labored breaths, and mouths the words, “It is finished.”

Prayer: Father, thank you for not counting Your Son’s life too high a price to pay for our brokenness and self-centeredness. Thank you for not wavering in your perfection and holiness, yet still creating a way to deal with my rebellion. Help me to never walk too far away from this beautifully, heart-wrenching story and the pure gratitude and humility it invokes in my heart. Let me live all of today in light of this great truth of your great love for me.

Action Step: Take a few moments to list out some of the things you have done in your past... the horrible things... things done against you as well... things you have tried to forget and suppress... things you would never want anyone to know about. Take the time to really think here. Once you have this list, imagine Jesus Christ taking that list from your hand, carrying it, along with his cross to the top of a mountain, and as he is being nailed to the cross, the same nail that is driven through his flesh is driven through that list. Everything you have ever done that has brought you shame, fear and guilt was nailed to the cross with him. It holds no more power over you, your identity, or your future. It is finished. Take the time to thank him for his great love!