This Update is different from what I usually share with you. I am praying for you to use my reflections as inspiration to worship in Spirit and in truth during this year’s Passion Week, starting Palm Sunday, March 29 through Easter Sunday, April 5.
My prayer of commitment: “I choose to walk with you, my heavenly Father, because you’ve candidly shared your story in the Bible. I’ll walk with you, Jesus, because you agreed to live out your Father’s and your joint story. I’ll walk with you, Holy Spirit, because you were vitally involved in this story, especially with Jesus in his earthly life, death and resurrection, and you inspired holy men of old to accurately record this amazing story. Amen.”
Having made that commitment, I want to more intentionally focus on the self-disclosure of God, eternally three distinct Persons yet One Essence. The initial picture I have of the Triune God before there was anything else, is perfect equality of each distinct person, relating to each other in perfect harmony. The three persons of the Triune God never competed but agreed to take roles or positions viewed by finite concepts as hierarchical because they are described in finite human terms. It seems they decided to independently function in their individual roles yet remain fully and equally bonded and mutually supportive in love, harmony, holiness and infinite knowledge.
There came a point when they together created something out of nothing, heaven and earth (Genesis 1:1). When that something was actuated time as we know it began. Then, at a certain point in time (Galatians 4:4) the Father sent his Son Jesus to be born of a virgin, thus being fully human, while at the same time continuing to be fully God. While in the body the writer of the book of Hebrews, in chapter 5 verse 8, declared, “although he (Jesus) was a son, he learned obedience from what he suffered and once made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation.”
I’ve often thought, how could one who is omniscient learn anything? In the past I pondered only on what Jesus Christ suffered physically, emotionally and socially during his 33-year incarnate lifetime. Recently I expanded my meditation to his eternal existence. Why did the triune God create the world out of nothing?
The three persons of the trinity enjoyed a unique relationship within the godhead, perfect harmony, absolute holiness, unbelievable love, etc. Their love was expressed toward each other in perfect harmony. Possibly, they thought that if they created humans in their image and placed them in a healthy environment with freewill, they would appreciate their creator’s love toward them and choose to love God in return. For that choice to be an expression of their free will in gratitude for all God provided for them, there would need to be an alternative choice to obedience. There would be risk involved if they did this, but the choice to love would reflect the kind of love God enjoyed within the trinity. Being omniscient the triune God anticipated humans possibly making the wrong choice. If they did, it would require repentance and forgiveness for them to experience reconciliation and restoration with God. And that initiated the declaration in 1st Peter 1:18-20, “You were redeemed…with the precious blood of Christ…chosen before the creation of the world.”
Jesus Christ knew from before time that he was going to experience what eventually happened on the cross, that is, having his Father forsake him as he “was made sin for us” (2nd Corinthians 5:21). That meant he knew there would be a moment during His incarnate state when he and the Father would experience a wrenching break in their perfect, loving harmony as he accomplished paying the penalty for the sin of the world.
In addition, during the time from when that plan was agreed to, he anticipated that moment, and therefore, suffered through obedience right up to the moment on the cross when he cried out, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Mark 15:34). Could this reality explain to some degree why Jesus often withdrew during his three-year ministry to be alone, especially to pray (Luke 5:16)? Also, why he at the age of 12 stayed behind in Jerusalem and spent three days in the temple courts, “sitting among the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions” (Luke 2:46). When he explained why he did this his parents didn’t understand. Yet he accepted their lack of understanding and “went down to Nazareth with them and was obedient to them…And Jesus grew in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and men (Luke 2:51-52). His moto throughout His life on earth was “to love the Father and…do exactly what my Father has commanded me” (John 14:31). Could it be, that this is what Jesus felt when He prayed to His Father so earnestly in Gethsemane that He agonizingly sweat drops of blood.
While focusing on the statement about Jesus’ learning obedience through suffering, I realized the same point can be made about God the Father. He agreed with the plan to send his Son into our broken, sin sick world to remove the barrier between us and him. To remove that barrier required the Father to make Jesus who had no sin to be sin for us (2nd Corinthians 5:21). Because of his omniscience, he also anticipated that excruciating moment, and therefore, was suffering through obedience right up to the moment on the cross when he turned his back to Jesus and heard him cry out, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Mark 15:34).
In addition, remember, the Holy Spirit, the third person in the trinity, also agreed to this plan. Paul writes in 1st Corinthians 2:10-12, “The Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God.” He was involved in Jesus’ miraculous birth. He guided and empowered Jesus in all he did, including raising Jesus from death after he had shed his blood as the only adequate sacrifice to deal with the necessity of atoning for the cumulative debt of every human being’s sin in the world, past, present and future.
Yes, all three persons of the Triune God, anticipated that excruciating moment right up to when it took place. The Father made Christ to be sin; then the Father recoiled and turned his back to Jesus Christ; and the Holy Spirit, knowing all that was going on in both the Father and in Jesus Christ, intimately observed and felt this tragic yet triumphant act of holiness, justice and love.
On the day of Christ’s crucifixion, suddenly darkness enveloped Jerusalem for three hours. Was it at this moment that for the first and only time throughout Christ’s life on earth, the bond between the Father and the Son was broken? At the end of the blackout, Jesus agonizingly cried out, while seemingly expiring on the cross, “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?” Abandoned, yet by faith, Jesus plaintively addressed the Father as “My God.” Then, in his final moments He cried out “It is finished!” Victorious, He placed His spirit, as an offering, into the hands of His Father (Luke 23:46). Paul declared in Colossians 2:15, “Having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross.” MISSION ACCOMPLISHED!
I sat quietly pondering this for hours, my focus moved away from the stark, physical and emotional trauma, often the focus of my thoughts during Passion week, to the pain of that momentary fracture in the relationship between the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. My heart was broken, tears welled up in my eyes, and with thankful heart I humbly bowed and said, “THANK YOU! THANK YOU! THANK YOU! HOLY! HOLY! HOLY! AMEN!!
Three days later, MISSION CONFIRMED! This was predicted by Jesus in John 10:14-18, “I am the good shepherd…I lay down my life – only to take it up again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down and authority to take it up again.” In Ephesians 1:15-20 Paul prayed, “that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father…may give you (Christians) the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know…the working of his mighty strength, which he exerted in Christ when he raised him from the dead.” In Romans 8:11 Paul describes how the Holy Spirit is “the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead.”
In other words, in conclusion, all three persons of the triune God were comprehensively involved in planning, participating in and pulling off the grand accomplishment of redemption. Now anyone and everyone who believes and receives what God has done will be saved and enter into eternal life. “This is the testimony: God has given us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. He who has the Son has life: he who does not have the Son of God does not have life. I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God so that you may know that you have eternal life” (1st John 5:11-13).