Jesus-Fully Man and Fully God

We have all sinned more times than we would like to admit. Although we try not to think about it, there are things that we did in secret which could ruin everyone’s view of us.

We know that Jesus died for those sins. We are undeserving, and we are very aware of that.

Being that we have knowledge of all of this, why are we so quick to brush it off? True, we occasionally take some time to contemplate the grace of God. We talk about the terrible torture that Jesus went through just for us. We get overwhelmed by the awesomeness of God’s power and have our little worship moments. But there is something that we rarely take into consideration: the actual reality of what Jesus was taking on for us.

No, I don’t mean the physical pain that was inflicted on Him. I am speaking of the burden He carried. Try to imagine every single sin that you have ever committed and then add to that an estimate of how many sins will take place in the rest of your life. That’s a lot of bad stuff! Now multiply that by the number of people who have ever existed and ever will exist. I know…that is pretty much unfathomable.

But that is my point exactly! Jesus was holding all of that on the cross! For that moment that God turned His back on His Son, Jesus held that burden completely alone. The reason why we cannot comprehend this burden is because we are not perfect. I think that when we try to put a human label on the weight He carried—like tons or semi trucks—we are being unintentionally ignorant and flippant. In attempting to grasp the ungraspable, we water it down to a primitive description.

Every time that we think twice about sinning…every impure image that we glance back at…every single time that we cave to the temptation to even think about it a second time…that is a sin that was laid on the shoulders of Christ. It doesn’t have to be something that we actually DID! Temptation is not sinful…it is when we give in that we are sinning. We always think of the bad stuff that we did to others, or the little things that we do when no one is watching. But in reality, Christ didn’t only carry those. He also carried the anger that festered into malicious thoughts, which led to the hatred that was never voiced but caused us to murder in our hearts.

It is beyond humbling to consider the mental, physical, and spiritual pain and suffering that Jesus went through for us. We always talk about the physical part because we CAN imagine that. Why don’t we take the time—right before the Holy Week—to simply soak in the pure, unselfish love that our Savior has unobtrusively offered? When you think of it that way…God really is not asking much at all by requiring us to give up all else in order to follow Him.