Like the narratives of Christ’s birth, the accounts of His crucifixion and resurrection are so familiar that we can miss the full intensity of the unexpected event. Though Jesus warned His disciples, they were not at all prepared for the trauma of His death or the shock of His resurrection. Because we know the outcome, it’s hard for us to identify with what they must have felt.
Although we may wish we could have been present at Jesus’s birth, who wishes to have seen His cruel, torturous death? Few want to read the details of what He suffered. We’ve sanitized Easter with aromatic lilies and colorful eggs.
But we must know exactly why the Father let His Son hang on the cross and why Jesus chose not to escape it. We need to grasp the glory of His resurrection. What blending of love and power can we see in these events? It’s almost as if Jesus could hear the tearful praises of future believers singing:
My sin—O, the bliss of this glorious tho’t—
My sin—not in part, but the whole,
Is nailed to the cross, and I bear it no more,
Praise the Lord, praise the Lord, O my soul!1
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1. Horatio Spafford, “It Is Well with My Soul.”