Passion week is sometimes an overwhelming mix of emotions for me. On the one hand you have the the faithfulness and love of Christ who walks through unthinkable pain and suffering towards the joy of his resurrection which renders death itself powerless. On the other you have a complex and gut wrenching week of human failure on display.

We see the corruption of human leadership and institutions as they plot to kill Jesus to maintain their position and power over the people. We see the fickleness of the crowd as they cheerfully welcome Jesus to Jerusalem only to, just as cheerfully, cry out for his death 5 days later. We see the disciples who with the best of intentions vow to be faithful no matter what, only to run away in terror when things go wrong. Passion week speaks to all the weakness and wickedness of the human heart. And it speaks to mine as well.

Every character in the story of Jesus’ last week has something to say to all of us. If we don’t see that, we risk missing the whole point of the gospel. As long as we are still saying, “I would never…” to ourselves we miss the point. I don’t care if it is Peter or Pilot or Thomas or Judas. Each character has something to say about the way our fallen humanity thinks and acts. As long as we only see this wickedness in others, we are still pretending that sin, in all its horror, is a “them” problem not a “me” problem. And until we recognize that it is our sin and our failure that caused the pain and suffering to both Jesus and His Father, we will never understand the depth of love it took to save us.

Our sin is not a “victimless crime” though we often act as though it is. Nor are we able to conquer it ourselves, though again, we often act as if we can. Sin separates, it separates us from God and God is the source of life. It separates us from each other as well since sin is in its very essence self centered and self serving. Every sin is a rebellion against God, it is saying, “no!” to God and since God is the source of life, every sin is saying no to life, separation and death are therefore the only possible outcome. It is that sin, my sin and your sin, that Jesus suffered for. Justice requires balance and only the death of Jesus could balance the scales of justice against the mountain of human guilt. He was fully human and thus could rightfully stand in humanities place, and He was fully divine making his death enough to pay for all the sins of mankind.

Passion week is a time of embracing the pain of our failure and not simply celebrating the victory of Christ’s resurrection. Without embracing our own guilt and our own complicity in His death we will not fully appreciate the unthinkable depth of His love and mercy for us all. To celebrate the resurrection without recognizing and embracing our guilt in his death is like hearing about a cure for cancer without having known anyone with cancer. With no appreciation for the horrors of the disease, the glory of the cure is never fully felt.

The death and resurrection of Jesus is a miracle of God’s grace and love for all of us. It is made more overwhelming by the knowledge of our genuine guilt before God. The eternal Son of God however understood the price, he became a man and felt our pain and carried our guilt to the cross and to the grave, in spite of our fickle and sin hardened hearts.

But God did not leave Him in that grave, God vindicated Christ and raised him up again and now we do truly have something to celebrate. Now life does not need to be a pointless and painful march to the grave. The grave has been defeated and Jesus is alive forever and His Spirit now empowers and transforms all of us as we trust in His work, rather than our own.

This week let’s embrace the process and purpose of the suffering, death, and resurrection of Jesus. Trusting only in His work because He has proven Himself worthy and God has verified this for all eternity through His resurrection from the dead.

Let’s close with this word from Paul to the church in Galatia.

But far be it from me to boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ,

Have a great week!