Today’s Scripture: John 19:1-37
He was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed. – Isaiah 53:5
I’ve always enjoyed reading the history of the Old West. The days of Custer, Doc Holliday, and Wyatt Earp hold a special fascination for me. I’ve been to the site of the O.K. Corral, but there is one tragic story in Western history that I can’t forget.
It concerns a young woman from Boston who came west in a stagecoach to teach school in a frontier town. Out on the prairie, a gang of drunken outlaws intercepted the stage, killed the drivers, and took the young woman to an abandoned shack, where they raped and beat her throughout the night.
Can you possibly imagine the revulsion, the shame, the pain and agony she went through? Here was an innocent, refined, young woman suddenly thrust into a world so horrifying it defied description. That scene has helped me imagine just a fraction of the agony of Jesus on the cross, where on a tragic day He was made sin for us as He suffered and died for you and me.
The physical agony was great, but it did not compare with the agony that was His when all the sin and moral filth of the world was laid on Him, and His spotless soul–which had known only the purity and glory of His home in heaven–was made sin on our behalf. He died that we might live.
Jesus took our sin and clothed us in the robes of His own eternal righteousness. We can echo the apostle Paul when He wrote, “Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ” (Romans 5:1).
Prayer
Lord, You are my righteousness. Amen.
To Ponder
We cannot fully comprehend what it meant for Jesus Christ to be made sin for us–to be forsaken by God, when He took on all the filth of the world that ever was and ever would be. But now He is risen to His glory and is sitting at the right hand of the Father.
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