What was Christ thinking?

Tomorrow is Good Friday. Before the earth existed, God the Father and God the Son knew that Good Friday would come. They knew what Good Friday meant. It amazes me that when God created the earth and everything in it He said, "It is good", and when God created man He said it was "very good". He knew what man would do. He knew that He would have to send His Son to save a wicked and evil people. The very people He created chose to turn away from their Creator.

I have heard many descriptions of the crucifixion. It was grueling. The torture, unbearable. But years ago at a conference I heard C.J. Mahaney describe the worst part of the crucifixion. It wasn't the beatings. It wasn't when He experienced mocking, spitting, and hatred as He carried the cross a long distance. It wasn't when they drove the nails into His hands. It wasn't when they raised the cross and dropped it into the hole jarring his entire body, and pulling every wound open more. It wasn't when he was gasping for air and taking every bit of strength He had left to push himself up to get one more gulp of air. It wasn't the betrayal of His closest friends. The worst part of the crucifixion was when Christ carried the full weight of our sin on the cross, and was no longer holy. He was sin. Your sin. My sin. The worst part of the crucifixion was when He became sin and was separated from God the Father. Up until that point He had experienced perfect union with His Father. He had never sinned. Now, he was our sin. The Father, being perfectly holy, could no longer look at Him as His Son, but as an object of His wrath.

"My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me"?

Christ was forsaken because He was your sin, my sin. Christ experienced the most intense loneliness and rejection imaginable. He was the object of His Father's wrath because of the price He paid for our sins.

What this means for us...

Good Friday is when the curtain was torn in two. In the Old Testament, only the high priest could go behind the curtain, and enter into the Holy of Holies to be in the presence of God, and that was only after a very long cleansing. The priest wore bells with a rope around his ankle in case he entered the Holy of Holies and was not clean and instantly dropped dead. No one could go in after him or they would surely die as well. So if the people could no longer hear the bells, they knew the priest had died, and pulled him out by the rope.

After Christ died on the cross, our sin was paid for, and the curtain was torn in two. Now anyone could enter the Holy of Holies, we no longer needed a high priest to go before the Lord and ask forgiveness for our sins. Now we could boldly enter into the presence of our Holy God and not die. Christ paid the price for our sin, and now we are able to enter boldly into the Lord's presence because we are covered by the blood of Jesus. When the Lord sees us, He sees His beloved Son.

Can you imagine the people on that first Good Friday near the Holy of Holies? They see the curtain start to tear, and they are terrified. They start to run, but there is an earthquake and they don't get very far. They hide their faces in fear and fall to their knees. When they finally gather the strength to look up they see the curtain, on the ground. They see inside the Holy of Holies and do not die. For the first time ever they can approach the throne of God.

On that Good Friday almost 2000 years ago, you didn't even exist yet. But on that day, Jesus thought of you, yes you. He thought of you on that day, and had compassion and mercy on you. He chose to pay the price for every sin you would ever commit. There is nothing you can do to earn this gift. You will never be able to repay it.

John 3:16 - For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.

Romans 5:8 says, "But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us."

I don't understand why a perfect God would send His only Son to die for wicked sinners so we could be reconciled to Him. I just know that Jesus thought of me on that first Good Friday and when He did He sweat blood. When He chose to pay for my sin, He experienced separation from God. Because of what He did on that cross, I will never be alone. I will never be separated from my Father. That day, Jesus paid for my sin in full, and set me free.