part 1 Today we are revisiting a passage in John to consider how it ties together so many of the themes woven throughout Lent: surrender, sacrifice, mercy, forgiveness, grace—and above all: love. You are deeply loved by God, and you have been since the beginning of time, and you will be after—and beyond—the end of time. we know that Jesus actually CHOSE the cross. While Jesus went to the cross to defeat sin’s power over us—to pay the penalty for sin on our behalf—sin did NOT HOLD Him there as a helpless captive. Jesus CHOSE to remain upon that cross, rather than come down. Rather than set Himself free from crucifixion, Jesus stayed to set us free for our salvation. Jesus CHOSE to save US—instead of choosing to save Himself. Because of love. The night before Jesus went to the cross, he said this to his disciples: Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. we see the overwhelming flood of love that led Jesus to choose to lay down His life so that we might truly live. LOVE is the reason WHY He held Himself to the cross. Growing in understanding of God’s love is essential to the life of faith. Reflecting on God’s love for us pours accelerant on the fire of our own love for God. And while God’s powerful Spirit is the One who transforms us and forms us anew in the image of God, it’s our awareness of His love that helps us become willing to surrender to Him. So even as we celebrate the resurrection of our risen Lord, we can look back to the cross to be reminded of His great love for us. in your Bibles John 10, I want you to keep this idea of the motivation of Jesus as love and relationship at the forefront. In this chapter, Jesus is speaking directly to the Pharisees. He prefaces John 10:1 with “very truly, I tell you, Pharisees”—so we know He was speaking directly to the religious fundamentalists of His day. Let us join our hearts before God in prayer. Heavenly Father, Your word, which is old, is the truth that can release us into new freedom—if we are willing to listen, to receive, and to act upon what we hear. Open our minds, open our hearts, by the power of Your Holy Spirit, whom You poured into our hearts through love, that we might understand the love You have for us and live according to your love. Help us to behold the wondrous mystery of Your cross, and to believe that what Jesus accomplished on the cross is a demonstration of love beyond measure. Amen. John 10:14-18: 14 “I am the good shepherd; I know my sheep and my sheep know me— 15 just as the Father knows me and I know the Father—and I lay down my life for the sheep. 16 I have other sheep that are not of this sheep pen. I must bring them also. They too will listen to my voice, and there shall be one flock and one shepherd. 17 The reason my Father loves me is that I lay down my life—only to take it up again. 18 No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down and authority to take it up again. This command I received from my Father.” The Pharisees would have known that about 600 years before Jesus was born, God had Ezekiel prophesy against Israel’s BAD shepherd-leaders who cared only for themselves, who took advantage of the people of God for their own purpose and profit. Through Ezekiel, God informed Israel that a day would come when He removed their bad shepherd leaders. God’s surprising declaration about who their new shepherd would be, found in Ezekiel 34:11-16:“For thus says the LORD God: Behold, I myself will search for my sheep, and will seek them out...I will rescue them from all the places to which they have been scattered...I will bring them out from the peoples and gather them from the countries, and will bring them into their own land; and I will feed them...I will seek the lost, and I will bring back the strayed, and I will bind up the injured, and I will strengthen the weak… So we see that God has promised that God Himself is going to shepherd His people as the good shepherd they have lacked. And then who shows up saying that He is the Good Shepherd? JESUS. Jesus knew what He was saying by calling Himself the Good Shepherd. In John 10, verse 30, Jesus declares: “I and the Father are one.” And it is out of this oneness with the Father, the intimacy shared by Father and Son, that Jesus goes to the cross. And the Father loves Jesus, entrusting to His Son His mission to be the very revelation of the nature and character of God. In verse 17, we see the reason the Father loves Him is that Jesus lays His life down for the sheep—only to take it up again. Biblical scholar Dale Bruner clarifies this statement well. He tells us: “We should not misunderstand this phrase to mean that the Father needed Jesus’ Cross and Resurrection in order for the Father to love Jesus. ------- part 2 “Rather, we should understand it like this: The Father so loves His Son and so loves His world that, out of this deep double love, the Father is thrilled that His Son is willing to lay down his life for his world.” The result was that He accomplished our salvation by paying the penalty we owed for our sin, the natural outworking for our disobedience, for straying from the blessing and protection of living according to God’s good design. But the reason or the motivation for Him doing this was love. And this is what our loving God has done for us. Because, truth be told: there is a cosmic equivalent of an oncoming car hurtling toward us when we don’t keep His commandments. God has eternally determined that in His Holiness, the rightful and just response to sin is wrath. A further consequence is separation from God, who cannot bear sin’s evil—but who in His mercy, also cannot bear separation from His children. You see, there is a cup of wrath that is prophesied about in Isaiah, Jeremiah and Revelation—and it is a dreadful cup, so dreadful that Jesus trembles in the Garden of Gethsemane as He sees it coming. And because the Father willed it, Jesus chose to do it. Hebrews 12:2 tells us, it was for the joy set before Him that Jesus endured the cross. That joy was knowing that the people of God would be restored to relationship with God, everlasting, unending relationship, born out of love. —God absorbs the full fury of His opposition to evil into Himself, the inevitable impact that has been eternally pre-determined as the righteous response to sin. --------------------- part 3 Because of that love, we don’t drink from the cup of wrath, the cup which we deserve. By grace, the cup we get to drink from? The communion cup. The cup of forgiveness, and fellowship, and life in His name. The cup of participation in communion with the living God. The cup that means we are fully accepted by God, no matter what we’ve done. We are seen and known—and accepted and loved. The cup we now get to receive, because of God’s love for us. We receive this cup because of God’s action on our behalf, to reconcile us into everlasting relationship, into everlasting communion with Him. May our hearts and hands be open, not only to receive what God has done for us, but to receive Him. To receive the outpouring of love He lavishes upon us, pours into us, through the Holy Spirit. Arms stretched wide, Jesus chose to hold himself to the cross, so that He could always hold onto us.