TUESDAY

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Imagine for a moment the emotional roller-coaster ride that must have been the last week of Jesus' life.  One day he's riding into Jerusalem on a donkey with throngs of people lining the streets shouting with joy, waving palm branches as he rides along the street.  It was a first century ticker-tape parade.  It was "Hail the conquering hero!".

Now, only days later, the shouts of joy have turned into jeers of "Give us Barabbas" and "Crucify him!".  How can something so right go so completely wrong so quickly?  How can homage turn to hatred overnight?  How must Jesus have felt, knowing it was these people he was going to the cross for?  He didn't have to.  He was choosing to willingly lay down his life for them.  He was willing to face the most horrific death possible for these people who were right now choosing a common criminal over him.  How do you go to the cross for these?

Nothing could take him to the cross but love.  Love for those who turned on him.  Love for those who hated him.  We must include ourselves in that unsavory group.  We weren't there to shout "Crucify him!", but we might as well have been.  It was for our sin he went to the cross.  Even when we lived as though he didn't exist...even when we didn't think we needed him...even when we were the self-proclaimed captains of our own destiny, living without regard to him, he went to the cross for us.  For me.  For you.

Read Luke 23.

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