Editor's note: Silent Saturday. It's a day to consider our hope in Jesus. Enjoy this devotion from Experiencing the Heart of Jesus for 52 Weeks by Max Lucado.
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You know the most amazing thing about the coming of Christ? You know the most remarkable part of the incarnation? Not just that He swapped eternity for calendars. Though such an exchange deserves our notice. Scripture says that the number of God’s years is unsearchable.
How great is God — beyond our understanding! The number of his years is past finding out. — Job 36:26
We may search out the moment the first wave slapped on a shore or the first star burst in the sky, but we’ll never find the first moment when God was God, for there is no moment when God was not God. He has never not been, for He is eternal. God is not bound by time.
But when Jesus came to the earth, all this changed. He heard for the first time a phrase that was never used in Heaven: “Your time is up.” As a child, He had to leave the temple because His time was up. As a man, He had to leave His hometown of Nazareth because His time was up. And as a Savior, He had to die on the cross because His time was up. For thirty-three years, the stallion of Heaven lived in the corral of time.
That’s certainly remarkable, but there is something even more so.
You might think it was the fact that He lived in a body. One moment He was a boundless spirit; the next He was flesh and bones. Remember these words of King David?
Where can I go from Your Spirit? Where can I flee from Your presence? If I go up to the Heavens, You are there; if I make my bed in the depths, You are there. If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea, even there Your hand will guide me, Your right hand will hold me fast. — Psalm 139:7–10
Our asking “Where is God?” is like a fish asking “Where is water?” or a bird asking “Where is air?” God is everywhere! Equally present in Peking and Peoria. As active in the lives of Icelanders as in the lives of Texans. The dominion of God is
from sea to sea and from the river to the ends of the earth. — Psalm 72:8
We cannot find a place where God is not.
Yet when God entered time and became a man, He who was boundless became bound. Imprisoned in flesh. Restricted by weary-prone muscles and eyelids. For more than three decades, His once limitless reach would be limited to the stretch of an arm, His speed checked to the pace of human feet.
Do you ever wonder, as I do, if He was ever tempted to reclaim His boundlessness? In the middle of a long trip, did He ever consider transporting Himself to the next city? When the rain chilled His bones, was He tempted to change the weather? When the heat parched His lips, did He give thought to popping over to the Caribbean for some refreshment?
If ever He entertained such thoughts, He never gave in to them. Not once. Stop and think about this. Not once did Christ use His supernatural powers for personal comfort. With one word He could have transformed the hard earth into a soft bed, but He didn’t. With a wave of His hand He could have boomeranged the spit of His accusers back into their faces, but He didn’t. With a mere arch of His brow, He could have paralyzed the hand of the soldier as He braided the crown of thorns. But He didn’t. Remarkable. But was this the most remarkable part of his coming to earth? Many would argue not.
Many, perhaps most, would point beyond the surrender of timelessness and boundlessness to the surrender of sinlessness. It’s easy to see why.
Isn’t this the message of the crown of thorns?
Using thorny branches, they made a crown, put it on His head, and put a stick in His right hand. Then the soldiers bowed before Jesus and made fun of Him, saying, ‘Hail, King of the Jews!’ — Matthew 27:29 NCV
An unnamed Roman soldier took branches — mature enough to bear thorns, nimble enough to bend — and wove them into a crown of mockery for Jesus... a crown of thorns.
Throughout the Bible, thorns symbolize not sin but the consequence of sin. Remember Eden? After Adam and Eve sinned, God cursed the land:
Cursed is the ground because of you; through painful toil you will eat food from it all the days of your life. It will produce thorns and thistles for you, and you will eat the plants of the field. — Genesis 3:17–18
Brambles on the earth are the product of sin in the heart.
This truth is echoed in God’s words to Moses. He urged the Israelites to purge the land of godless people. Disobedience would result in difficulties.
But if you do not drive out the inhabitants of the land, those you allow to remain will become barbs in your eyes and thorns in your sides. — Numbers 33:55
Rebellion results in thorns.
Evil people’s lives are like paths covered with thorns and traps. — Proverbs 22:5 NCV
Jesus even compared the lives of evil people to a thornbush. In speaking of false prophets, He said,
By their fruit you will recognize them. Do people pick grapes from thornbushes, or figs from thistles? — Matthew 7:16
The fruit of sin is thorns — spiny, prickly, cutting thorns. What exactly is the fruit of sin? Step into the briar patch of humanity and feel a few thistles. Shame. Fear. Disgrace. Discouragement. Anxiety. Haven’t our hearts been caught in these brambles?
The heart of Jesus, however, had not. He had never been cut by the thorns of sin. What we face daily, He never knew. Anxiety? He never worried! Guilt? He was never guilty! Fear? He never left the presence of God!
- Jesus never knew the fruits of sin until He became sin for us.
And when He did, all the emotions of sin tumbled in on him like shadows in a forest. He felt anxious, guilty, and alone. Can’t you hear the emotion in His prayer?
My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me? — Matthew 27:46
These are not the words of a saint. This is the cry of a sinner. This prayer is one of the most remarkable parts of His coming. But I can think of something even greater.
Want to know the coolest thing about the coming?
Not that the One who played marbles with the stars gave it up to play marbles with marbles. Or that the One who hung the galaxies gave it up to hang doorjambs to the displeasure of a cranky client who wanted everything yesterday but couldn’t pay for anything until tomorrow. Not that He refused to defend Himself when blamed for every sin of every man and woman since Adam. Or that He stood silent as a million guilty verdicts echoed in the tribunal of Heaven and the Giver of Light was left in the chill of a sinner’s night.
Not even that after three days in a dark hole He stepped into the Easter sunrise with a smile and a swagger and a question for lowly Lucifer — “Is that your best punch?”
That was cool, incredibly cool. But want to know the coolest thing about the One who gave up the crown of Heaven for a crown of thorns?
He did it for you. Just for you.
God willingly chose to enter time and be imprisoned in flesh.
The fruit of sin is thorns — spiny, prickly, cutting thorns.
The heart of Jesus had never been cut by the thorns of sin. Jesus gave up the crown of Heaven for a crown of thorns.
Memory Verses
Write out the words of Colossians 1:13–14.
The Heart of Jesus
People brought Him the sick. Jesus touched and healed people with every conceivable disease. He did not shrink from the outcasts and the unlovely. Blind eyes, shriveled limbs, pocked cheeks, decaying skin, twitching muscles, deaf ears... He had seen it all. But the outward ailments were only part of it. Jesus also knew what lay in the hearts of people. He could see it in their eyes — liars, cheaters, backstabbers, murderers, bigots, adulterers, gossips. He could heal their bodies, but He longed for the chance to heal their sin-sick souls. It was for this reason that He came to earth — for every selfish, angry, competitive, self-righteous, manipulative, cheating, stingy, ungrateful person who would come to Him for forgiveness.
Excerpted with permission from Experiencing the Heart of Jesus for 52 Weeks by Max Lucado, copyright Max Lucado.
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Your Turn
It was for you. Because He loves you. Take that in today. Today is Silent Saturday when all the world thought that their hopes in Jesus were wasted. When His followers were afraid, hiding, and hopeless. But, tomorrow we will celebrate that Jesus won the victory over death and the grave! Hang on — hope in Jesus is never wasted! ~ Devotionals Daily