What Does Jesus' Death Have To Do With Me? (1)?

What Does Jesus’ Death Have To Do With Me? (1)?

What does the suffering of Jesus have to do with me?  What difference does it make to me today that Jesus died? 

Most of us realize that to some degree or another we have harmed others by our actions, our words, or our neglect.  Many of us persisted in harmful behaviour towards ourselves and others for months or years.   Only when our own pain was too great to carry did we seek help and look for a new way of life.  The death and resurrection of Jesus which we celebrate at Easter is a reminder that He came to earth to forgive, heal, and restore.  In whatever ways we’ve experienced evil done to us or evil done by us, Jesus has paid the price for our freedom from the penalty of those sins.

By allowing sin and evil to be piled on him on the cross, rather than remain with us, Jesus made a new way for those who choose it. That’s the challenge for us to accept:  He made the new way for those who choose it.

We can continue to carry our difficulties and our sin, the pain of broken relationships and harmful experiences in our past.  We can let memories trigger anger and resentment or simply make us sad, heavy and irritable.  We can remain stuck in an endless circle of wandering around as a wounded one never allowing ourselves to be healed.    That’s a choice that many make.  They allow violence done to them or by them to become the focus of who they are today.

Jesus, through the cross, offers us a new option.  We can bundle up our pain, our brokenness, our hatred, our self-pity, our addictive behaviours, our sadness and sorrow and we can hand it over, give it away to Him.  When we give it to Jesus, the suffering Saviour, we will receive peace and healing from him.  Jesus asks all of us today, “Do you want to get well?”  “Do you want the new way of freedom and peace and love to be activated in your life today?”  There’s only ONE way for that to take place and that’s through turning our pain and our shame over to Jesus and then choosing His way to new way life.

You must have the same attitude that Christ Jesus had. Though he was God, he did not think of equality with God as something to cling to. Instead, he gave up his divine privileges; he took the humble position of a slave and was born as a human being. When he appeared in human form, he humbled himself in obedience to God and died a criminal’s death on a cross. Therefore, God elevated him to the place of highest honor and gave him the name above all other names, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. (Philippians 2:1-11 NLT) 

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