Today we remember when Jesus the world’s ultimate leader made the ultimate sacrifice for those He led–the human race! We call it “Good Friday,” but both for Jesus and for what it said about humanity it was the worst single moment in human history. He came to give us life in all of its abundance and in return we “gave” Him a cruel and unimaginable death sentence. He came to give us love and we “have” Him the cruelest form of rejection and hate. He came to lead us and we rejected His leadership soundly, and decided to lead ourselves–again.
The result? The salvation of humanity. Jesus’ death changed everything for everyone forever! While as we look around these days it isn’t always obvious that Jesus won the battle over sin and death, when we look inside of our own hearts, we are able to see glimpses of the victory if we have trusted Jesus as Savior and Lord. His death and resurrection stand as the single greatest act of love and sacrifice on the one hand, and of power and victory on the earth. The cross without the resurrection is a pathetic story of a martyr whose grand intentions ended in a tomb near Jerusalem. The cross with the resurrection is the account of God become man, to lead humanity to a freedom only God could have imagined.
I pray each of us takes time today to remember and reflect on the example Jesus set. Each of us has the opportunity to “take up our cross daily and follow” Jesus. Today is a reminder the extreme lengths to which that can lead, but on most days for us it means putting our selfish ambitions aside to serve Jesus and those we lead. Cross-bearing is never easy, whether of the literal or figurative type. Today of all days is a day for remembering that. Yet, when Jesus bore His cross for us, He changed our eternal destinies. When we bear our crosses in His name it changes us, our families, our churches, our communities and even our world. That’s the plan, and Jesus has no plan B.
Here’s to leading better, by pausing to remember Jesus’ ultimate sacrifice for us–today!