Thanking God this Holy Week
Detail: Maria Salomé. The Deposition of Christ. Rogier Van der Weyden.
Believers and seekers the world over would do well to contemplate this question during this most Holy Week:
Why did Jesus suffer and die?
To take away the curse of sin? To deliver us from death? To triumph over the Enemy? To expunge our sins? To overcome the world? Yes, yes, yes, yes, and yes.
However, Hebrews points to something different: Jesus “learned obedience by what He suffered” (Heb 5:8). As Author of our salvation, He himself was “perfected through sufferings” (Heb 2:10).
In Hebrews, as in Leviticus, the verb “perfect” has to do with priesthood. As Aaron and his sons were “filled” by the ordination rite, so Jesus was “fulfilled” as priest in His sufferings.
In the greatest act of condescension, in the weakness of flesh, He made Himself vulnerable, so that He could be a sympathetic High Priest (Heb 4:15), able to deal gently with the ignorant and wayward (Heb 5:2).
This is so often a neglected facet of Jesus’ character and work. Some theology so stresses Jesus’ sovereign power that it almost forgets His compassion.
Among some Christians, so-called ‘soft’ virtues like gentleness and sympathy is ridiculed as effeminate.
But a pitiless Jesus isn’t the real Jesus. I Jesus not deeply acquainted with our sufferings isn’t the real Jesus. Yes, Jesus tossed around tables in rage at Pharisaical hypocrisy. But the same Jesus prayed with “loud cries and tears” (Heb 5:7).
These cries are sometimes the tears that our SAMS Missionaries hear and see so closely among those to whom they minister. The cries are sometimes their own.
During this Holy Week, thank God you’re delivered from the world, the flesh, and the devil. And give thanks for a great High Priest who knows your weakness because He’s shared it.