Matthew 27:46 "Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?" (ESV)
Have you heard about this new Gospel of Judas? Apparently, Judas has been exonerated. Yeah, this "new" gospel has finally been found. For 2000 years it has slipped through the hands of those who really desired to know its truth. It even spent 16 years in a bank vault in New York where it became so aged and worn that the greatest restorers of world antiquity could just barely reveal its message.
But now the verdict is in; Judas wasn't really guilty. He was apparently the only disciple to really get Jesus. Forget the hundreds of other documents from the first century that speak otherwise. Now, we in the 21st century--who are so much wiser and more learned than they in the 1st century--hold the truth. There's no need to be so upset with ol' Judas anymore. Jesus asked Judas to do it!
Please forgive my fecitiousness this morning.
As I focus on this Passion week, I cannot get past the weight of Jesus' words on the cross. Our Bibles show Jesus' words in Aramaic, and then translates those words like this: "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"
You see, it wasn't Judas that killed Christ. It wasn't Pilate or Caiaphas. The centurion guards who whipped and beat Jesus didn't kill Him. It wasn't even my sin that crucified Jesus.
It was the Father. Isaiah 53:10-11 says, "Yet it was the will of the Lord to crush him; he has put him to grief...Out of the anguish of his soul he shall see and be satisfied; by his knowledge shall the righteous one, my servant, make many to be accounted righteous, and he shall bear their iniquities."
The New Testament interprets that truth like this: "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life." (John 3:16)
The willingness of the Father to offer the Son, the acceptable substitute that the world might be saved, is incomprehensible. My Father loves me! He loves you! There is no greater love. Today, let's bask in the love of God--let's be living sacrifices; living illustrations of the cross.
