Luke 22:44 “And being in an agony he prayed more earnestly: and his sweat was as it were great drops of blood falling down to the ground.”

This is could be the most heart wrenching verse in the Bible

I’ve never even begun to comprehend it until much later in my adult life, and I think for eternity I’ll only ever barely touch the surface of what Jesus went through in taking the sins of the world, including my own, in himself and upon himself.

We can talk about it and intellectually know it, but truly we don’t get it…

This is Jesus in the garden of Gethsemane praying and pleading with his Father… “Saying, Father, if thou be willing, remove this cup from me: nevertheless not my will, but thine, be done.”

Jesus really didn’t want to have to take my sins and everyone else’s sins upon himself and bare them in his own body… if there was any other way to save my soul he would have taken it “O my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me”

“If it be possible”… the next time we disobey even the most basic good and ever reasonable thing that God tells us to do… remember… the only help, hope and salvation for humanity is because of one man’s ultimate act of obedience in the face of an impossibly horrible task.

… Think of the worse thing that you’ve ever done, or that’s ever been done to you, or that you know that’s been done to someone else, or that you’ve heard happen somewhere sometime… something that badly affected you, something you can’t forgive or forget…

It shouldn’t be hard given all the pain, suffering and unspeakable evil in this world… most people try to escape from reality and live in a world that doesn’t even truly exist because the knowledge and realities of this sin cursed existence are too great for us to think about… let alone bear.

We don’t even want to think about the people, the children, around the planet who daily are experiencing the horror and terror of the evils of man. Sin is utterly ugly… and some is worse than others, but it’s all bad.

… Jesus took not just every sin, but the knowledge and hurt and pain of that sin in himself forever. And yes he took it away, but he did take it… and he’d never done any of which he had to take upon himself. It wasn’t his fault, although we like to blame God for everything… and yet he loved us enough to take our sins upon himself so we could be set free from them.

Imagine true escape from sin. It’s possible! Because one man faced down the impossible.

Back in Leviticus 16, on the day of atonement in Israel, the sins of a whole nation for a year were transferred to one goat that was called a “scapegoat”, who was taken, bearing their sins, outside Jerusalem and lead away into the wilderness to “a land not inhabited”… and that goat was let go out in the wilderness never to be seen again.

Just a reminder: someone had to pay for every transgression, every sin must be accounted for. … And although our salvation is free, remember, it came at a great cost, in fact the greatest cost ever incurred and Jesus took that cost upon himself. What a Saviour

It was a burden so heavy even he as the Son of God could barely bare it. And he took it and took it away never to be seen again if you’ve trusted in him as your Saviour.

But we really have no idea what Jesus went through for us. So when we make light of the cross of Christ, God is not amused. If your son died for someone and nobody cared or even turned him into a joke, you’d be upset I’m sure.

In the Old Testament, David got proud and sinned very badly against God and many people died. To atone for his sin, God instructed him to make a sacrifice at a place and with materials which another man owned.

That man offered David the place, the instruments and material for free!!! … but David insisted on paying “full price” and when offered for free he said this… “Nay; but I will surely buy it of thee at a price: neither will I offer burnt offerings unto the LORD my God of that which doth cost me nothing.”

Reminder: our salvation may come free, but it did cost someone. Free things are generally free because they carry little value, it’s when we pay a big price that we truly value things more… well, our salvation came at the highest price, a price we could never pay ourself.

… Maybe the blood of Christ is trash to you, or maybe it’s just a cool story, or maybe you just tip your hat to him, maybe it’s worth a passing gesture of appreciation from you…. I don’t know, but to God and hopefully me and you its “the precious blood of Christ”

FYI: God has only ever said about one human being “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.”

… and if your sins haven’t been washed in the blood of God’s Son Jesus Christ, it doesn’t matter how reformed or moral or justified you think you are… those sins are not okay and they’re not gone anywhere. Every sin must be atoned for and if he hasn’t taken yours by faith, they’re on you… when they don’t have to be.

In the book of Exodus, when God instructed the Israelites to sacrifice a lamb, called the Passover, on their last night in Egypt… there was a reason that they put the blood on the doorpost and lintel of their homes… but not the threshold…

It’s because Jesus blood is not to be trampled on. It’s not to be walked on, walked over … and it’s not meant to be beneath you.
I personally thank God for sending his Son to pay for my sins. I thank him for making a way where there was none where he took all my sins away by bearing knowledge, the burden, the guilt, the shame, the hurt…the cost himself.

I contributed to that cost, so will be forever thankful for my passover lamb “Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world”. Jesus not only bore our sins… but he also can wash and take it all away.

… And there will be no scars for me in eternity, but Jesus has permanent marks in his body for us, an eternal reminder of the terrible cost of sin.

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