Mensa Otabil - Crucified
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Today is Good Friday, the day we commemorate the death of our Lord Jesus Christ. We will read from Luke chapter 23, verse 33: «And when they had come to the place called Calvary, there they crucified Him and the criminals, one on the right hand and the other on the left.»
The death of Jesus Christ occurred under the most painful, humiliating, and embarrassing circumstances. The extent to which the Son of God went for our salvation is remarkable. The form of His death, the place of His death, and the people He died with were all very, very humiliating, but that was the price that the Son of God paid for our salvation. It shows the lengths that God will go to bring us close to Himself. We will examine those three aspects individually.
The first is the form of His death: crucifixion. Jesus was crucified; it was the most cruel punishment of the Romans, invented by the Phoenicians and perfected by the Romans. It was a very painful death designed to humiliate the person being executed. Jesus Christ not only suffered crucifixion, but He was whipped, carried His cross, and was nailed publicly on the cross. Crucifixion was a very slow death that resulted in suffocation. The second is the place where He died: Calvary. Today, it sounds like a very nice name, but Calvary was a rubbish dump, Golgotha for the Hebrews. It was a place outside the city gates of Jerusalem where people threw all the rubbish. The hill of Calvary was not a nice place; it wasn’t decorated, and there weren’t nice flowers or trees. It was simply a filthy, dirty rubbish dump. Jesus Christ came from the glory of heaven to die on a rubbish dump, where all the refuse of the city was thrown out-what nobody wanted-ended up at Calvary. There, in that spot, that’s where Jesus died; He was planted among the filth of the world.
The third is the people He died with: criminals. So we have crucifixion, Calvary, and criminals-common criminals, thieves who had committed ordinary crimes and were now being executed for their offenses. Jesus had committed no crime, yet He was lumped in with them. When you consider the three aspects-the form of death, the place of death, and the people He died with-all of it was designed to carry a message: that God will go to the lowest level, in the lowest place, to bring us unto Himself.
Jesus Christ paid the highest price in the foulest place on earth, among the most despicable people, the lowest of the low, to bring us to the heights of God’s love, grace, and mercy. Today, when we talk of the crucifixion, the cross has become a symbol of honor and glory. We even use it to adorn ourselves, reflecting what Jesus did on that cross. We talk about the thief who found grace and salvation on the cross of Calvary. So as we contemplate all that happens on this Good Friday, remember the extent to which God went-to the lowest of the low-to bring us to the highest of the heights.
Let us pray. Say with me, «Heavenly Father, thank You for allowing Your Son Jesus to die for me. I receive His life. In Jesus' name, amen and amen.» Well, my friends, I will catch you again tomorrow as we talk about the events of Holy Saturday. I am Pastor Mensa Otabil. Shalom, peace, and life to you.