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For each of us the Cross of Jesus Christ is either intensely personal or meaningless.
There’s no middle ground, no gray area.
What happened in Jerusalem over 2000 years ago poses a question to each of us.

What response do I have to the death of Christ on the Cross?

The Bible says the Cross was about reconciling God’s holiness with His great love for us.
We always underestimate His holiness.
We usually underestimate our sin.

The Cross was the culmination of a mission begun when Christ took upon Himself the form of a servant and came in the likeness of man.
His entire life was an offering, a sacrifice.
He lived to bring us back into relationship with the Father.

That truth was the prism through which I looked at the Scriptures this week.
We often focus on the physical brutality of His suffering and death.
I think the truly horrifying part for Christ was the moment of despair and desolation that drew the cry from the depths of His being, “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?”

In that moment our sins were upon Him. Our punishment, our guilt, our shame heaped on Him.
Then, it was finished.

And what looked like a great defeat, like the end of a great visitation from God, was actually a great victory.
An old enemy was dealt a deadly blow. Disarmed and disgraced he would never again have power over those who put their faith in Christ.

Throughout my Christian life I’ve heard some beautiful Good Friday messages.
I can’t attend a service this year, but God has spoken to my heart from the old story as I’ve read it through this Holy Week.

One thought has circled me day by day.
I want to love God.

I want to love the Father.
To never be content, not for a moment, without His fellowship.
I want to love Jesus.
Listening to Him as the voice that spoke from heaven instructed the frightened disciples on the mountain.
I want to love the Holy Spirit. Carrying out the will of God with genuine humility.

I want what happened on the Cross to have a full measure of consequence in my life.
I want to be touched deeply, instructed fully, and transformed constantly by the Cross of Jesus Christ.