You have experienced God in a way Jesus had not…until Good Friday.
And every day non-Christians experience it.
That experience is called distance from God.
Bear with me, because this may sound weird but it isn’t. See, Jesus was born unfallen; He never sinned and so there was no reason for God to ever be distant from Him or judge Him.
Imagine the kind of life Jesus had, one in full relationship with His Father.
Every day His Father fully saturated his mind, the world around him, and his relationships. Wherever he looked he saw his Father working to keep the clouds moving, the stars and planets spinning, animals fed, and people cared for.
Jesus saw our rebellion but He also saw all that His Father was doing through that rebellion.
Jesus knew the guidance and power of the Holy Spirit so he never doubted God’s existence or God’s ability to work.
When Jesus needed help, He spoke with his Father and received guidance and help.
When Jesus read the Word, God literally spoke and it always made the most sense. He could even see where men had messed it up.
Then came the Garden of Gethsemane, the place Jesus would face a reality he had never experienced before, but one that – to some degree – you and I have faced throughout our lives.
Have you ever wondered why Jesus would say, “If there is any other way…”? Did Jesus suddenly not love us, or want to chicken out? Let me just say, “NO WAY!”
What Jesus was facing as he looked toward the cross was his first experience of separation from a blessed relationship with his Father.
The thought of this was so horrifying that he didn’t wish to go through with it. There, on the cross, he’d face his Father’s wrath and displeasure…for us.
See, we don’t realize what we miss every day.
Because of sin, we walk in a world where God is relationally distant and may seem non-existent. Here atheists are just more honest; they sense the distance from God and acknowledge it.
But what we are experiencing, Jesus didn’t for his thirty plus years of life.
We walk in fear of the random.
We live feeling insignificant.
We live depressed and without joy.
We live begging for wisdom.
We live sensing and searching for the spiritual.
And here’s the thing, for Jesus that kind of life was unbearable…because that kind of life lead to death and judgment.
This is why Jesus struggled in Gethsemane. This is why on the cross, when God’s wrath fell, he cried, “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me!”
Jesus experienced the distance and displeasure of God…AND HE DID IT WILLINGLY FOR US!
This Good Friday, stop and remember that Jesus bore our sins on the cross.
Remember what it cost him.
He bore our separation, judgment, sin, and death so that we could be reunited with God, no longer separated and distant but able to have God near every day!
Thank you, Jesus.