Overtaken with emotion, my husband and I embraced our eldest daughter, taking communion for her first time. Wanting to make sure she fully understood the significance of this moment, I asked her a few questions regarding her faith. With a genuine heart she peered up at me and said, “mom Jesus is my best friend.” I had watched her read her new Bible in bed every night with great anticipation in her heart. This shared moment with my husband and daughter as we sat in church together, swept through me with an emotion too great to describe. The connection of watching someone you love so much, choose a gift so great. The following week she would approach me, recalling this special moment, wanting to talk about it.
This week preceding Good Friday and Easter, I spend further reflection on the cross and what Jesus’s sacrifice means for us all. With great anguish, God watched as His world He created rejected Him in sin. He knew He needed a sacrifice to save us, to redeem us. He sent His son to be murdered for our sins. He knew the affliction was for a greater purpose, a long term plan to spend eternity with all His creation. He desires that none should perish. He isn’t a condeming God, but one of love and free will. His desire is we would all turn from sinful desires, and choose Him.
As I read all four accounts of the night leading up to Jesus’s death, my heart is pierced with incredible gratefulness. The night of Jesus’s betrayal, He wept in the garden of Gethesamane. Jesus would plead, “My soul is exceedingly sorrowful, even to death.” Jesus felt agony, deep sorrow and troubled as He was sweating blood. Jesus cried out three different times in the night asking that this cup be taken from Him, if possible. Knowing it was not, He cried, “ but your will, not my own.” It wasn’t only the physical death that Jesus was tormented by, but the temporary seperation from His Father. This speaks inexplainable depth to my heart of how great the Fathers love is for us. Jesus could not bear being seperated from His Father, for even a moment. But the sin of the world bearing on Jesus, our sacrificer, was just too much for the Father. Yet through their agony, He bore our sins and died on the cross. He did this so we could have access to the Father, our Creator. He died so that my 6 year old daughter could say that Jesus is her best friend. Instead of dreaming about a prince to come and save her, she has a relationship with the King who already has. And this access is only by the blood of Jesus. The communion that we partake in with Him, free to all who accept Him as Lord and Savior.
~Walking Restored~ 