It’s Holy Week.

The Creator of the cosmos, kingdoms, and all powers has ridden into town.

On a donkey.

It seems on par with the nativity scene of the Babe in an animal trough, in some damp dwelling, where animals live and eat. And do other things.

The humility of God is a bit overwhelming given the unfolding of His story. It would be easy to miss him in the crowd. The crowd He rode into that week before His death, waved palm branches, and shouted, “Hosanna, blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord!”

A few days later, they were yelling, “Crucify Him!”

Many still miss him.

I know I have at times.

Not much has changed in two millennia. All the world is still shouting this Holy week. Kids trafficked by drug lords. A Swiss missionary’s remains found after being kidnapped by Jihadists. Systematic torture, “re-education” of peoples not fit for China’s politics. Coups and threats, nations rising and falling, and failing.

And where is God?

He is found in the most obscure of places.

He is found here.

Emmanuel means, God with us. This very week, history culminates in the collision of God and man. The God-Man came to be one of us. And in this most Holy of weeks in the Jewish calendar, His eyes are on what is before Him.

Past the crowds and their palm branches.

The Cross.

And just beyond the cross, He sets His joyous sight on something else.

Us.

Our right-standing with God.

This is only accomplished as He willingly lays down the intimacy He shares in the Trinity, the rights and privileges of His Godhead.

God humbled himself to death. Even death on a cross. (Philippians 2:8)

And while all the world is groaning, Christ is groaning in our place. If there’s any doubt your sin separates you from a just and holy God, listen to the utter agony of Christ’s words. As the sin of the world and the wrath of God is laid on His shoulders He cries out, “My God, My God, why have You forsaken me?”  Matthew 27:46.

Jesus is separated momentarily from His Father and the Spirit.

Because He knows we are separated from a Holy God through our immense offenses against His perfect law. When David sinned with Bathsheba, committing adultery, He said,

“Against You and You only have I sinned” Psalm 51:4.

Such is the case of every sinner. It is God we have sinned against. What is more grievous than this?  All the good we “do” can never satisfy the justice we deserve.

In this Holy week, this week in a world that has long passed insanity, God has undone the curse. The curse that came in that once perfect Eden. When we thought we knew better than God. When we broke communion with Him, fled the shade of the tall trees and His arms. And a sinful nature wrapped itself around us instead.

 “Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us (for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree”), that the blessing of Abraham might come upon the Gentiles (all) in Christ Jesus, that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith” Galatians 3:13-14.

That promise to Abraham is a deeply cut one. It’s a covenant. More than a promise, it requires the spilling of life blood. And we broke our end of it. Someone has to pay.

Someone did.

“Jesus paid it all! All to Him I owe. My sin had left a crimson stain. He washed it white as snow” -Elvina M. Hall, 1865.

The question of God’s love is forever settled, His enduring goodness proclaimed in the Cross of Christ.

“For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will scarcely die for a righteous person, though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die, but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God” Romans 5:6-9.

While we were yet sinning, choosing the forbidden fruit, rebelling, yelling, seeking our own way, Christ died.

God spent Himself for us, how will we spend Holy Week?

Perhaps we pass around drinks, make food, and sit with family this weekend.

Let it remind you that Jesus has poured out His blood in the cup of His new covenant and broken His body like bread for us. He is gathering eternal family.

This blessed week, let us set our eyes on our Redeemer, the ONLY hope for this broken world. 

Let us rejoice in His triumphant entry into the gates of our hearts, where He conquers the reign of sin and sets us free from death.

True, the humility of God is a bit overwhelming given the unfolding of His story. But then there’s the folded grave clothes at the end of it.

Or rather the beginning.

Happy Resurrection Week!