ON OUR WAY TO SUNDAY

If we don’t aptly reckon with the sorrow, we won’t fully recognize the sacrifice.

If we don’t focus on the agony, we will never fully appreciate the atonement.

It is probably true that we don’t want to focus on the suffering of Christ because of our empathetic response. Put simply, we don’t WANT our Jesus to hurt. But here’s the cold, hard truth: He suffered so deeply because sin is costly. Sin demands justice. Sin is black. Sin is painful. One of the reasons why we might so quickly pass over the intense suffering of Christ without too much thought is that – well, to put it bluntly – it is our fault. It was on account of our sin that He suffered.

Tony Compolo achieved a level of notoriety in the 1980s for his sermon, “It’s Friday, but Sunday’s Coming,” which is a wonderful and comforting truth. It reminds us that when we are hurting, we can know that the resurrection stands as a beacon of hope that our hurt is not permanent.

In terms of our spiritual life, those of us who know Christ know that our sins are forgiven, but in order never to forget the high cost of sin, we should remember that “It’s Sunday, but not long ago it was Friday.” Sin is expensive, and Jesus offered himself up to suffering and crucifixion to settle our sin debt.

“He was despised and rejected by mankind, a man of suffering, and familiar with pain. Like one from whom people hide their faces he was despised, and we held him in low esteem. Surely he took up our pain and bore our suffering, yet we considered him punished by God, stricken by him, and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities …” Isaiah 53:3-5