THE END OF THE TUNNEL

Imagine yourself a silent witness to the humiliation that Jesus was subjected to before his death.  The soldiers stripped him of his clothes, put a crown of thorns upon his head and mocked him. They spat on him and took a stick and struck him again and again on the head.  Prior to this he had been slapped and hit with fists and flogged.

Now, imagine Jesus standing there and in his mind’s eye he is looking through a tunnel into the future, thousands of years into the future and he is focused on one person at the end of the tunnel.  As he stands there with spit and blood running down his face, enduring the pain of being brutally hit and mocked, all he can think about is this person at the end of the tunnel.

The person he is looking at is a murderer and an adulterator, an alcoholic, a thief and a liar, someone full of pride and envy, someone who is destroying their lives by cutting themselves, starving themselves or throwing up after every meal because they think it will make them feel better.  The person is a sadist, cannot control their temper and lashes out at people, verbally and physically.  The person has so many hidden sins it is unbelievable. The person he is thinking of doesn't even believe in God and thinks of themselves as being a decent human being.  He is concentrating so hard on this person in an effort to blot out what is happening to him and he is repeating to himself “I will endure this, I will willingly go through being nailed to a cross and being separated from my Father in heaven if it means that that person has a chance of asking for forgiveness, of being forgiven and of being able to spend eternity with God and me”.

Jesus knows that the only chance that person has of having a relationship with God is through his death and resurrection because God cannot accept a sinner into heaven and have His kingdom tainted with sin.

He knows that the only chance that person has is for him to die on the cross – to take that person’s sin upon his body, to have those sins nailed to the cross and to die for that person in the hope that that person will accept him into their lives, confess their sins and because of the blood that he shed on the cross they could be forgiven and so enter into a relationship with God.

Jesus would be the bridge between this person and God.

“Forgiveness is the divine miracle of grace. The cost to God was the Cross of Christ.  To forgive sin, while remaining a holy God, this price had to be paid.” (Oswald Chambers)

You are the person at the end of the tunnel. You are the person that Jesus looked at.  You are the person Jesus died for.

I AM THAT PERSON

“For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life”.   John 3:16