Monday, June 1, 2015
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You can always tell when Easter's on its way. And again this year, when Easter came around it happened again. All the Jesus shows start popping up on TV. And that's a good thing. I mean, one channel had Finding Jesus, and then another one had Killing Jesus. And the makers of that much-watched series The Bible, well they followed up with A.D. - The Bible Continues. That's the sequel to The Bible.
Well, two years ago, when that series The Bible showed the suffering and crucifixion of Jesus, it was amazing. The social media lit up with shocked viewers who were saying, "I had no idea what Jesus went through." I'm glad they got an idea. The brutalizing of Jesus was so violent that Hollywood had to make The Passion of the Christ movie R rated. But for all the realism and all the effects that Hollywood has brought to its' portrayal of Jesus' death, you know, there's something very important they haven't shown, because they can't.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "What All the Jesus Movies Miss."
You see, what they miss revolves around that heart-wrenching moment before Jesus breathes His last. When He cries out, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken Me?" Because, you see, that was the decisive moment in the eternal mission of Jesus; the moment when God the Father abandoned the One the Bible calls "His one and only Son." Rending that holy relationship that had never been broken throughout all the ages of eternity until that horrific but holy moment when my sin forced God to turn His back on His Son so He wouldn't have to turn His back on me or on you.
I'm the rebel, the hijacker of the throne made for God to reign in my soul. I'm the one who pushed the God of a hundred billion galaxies to the margins of a life that He gave me. If I harbored any illusions that I could ever get into God's heaven by doing some good things, that illusion dies at the foot of Jesus' bloody cross. That's where the price of human sin is spelled out in blood for all to see. That's what it takes to pay for a lifetime of rebellion against God.
That's why the Bible says, "The wages of sin is death." Death as in forever being cut off from a holy God, who cannot touch sin. He's the source of everything good. You see, that penalty can only be paid by me, the sinner, who earned those wages or unthinkably, by a sinless substitute, Jesus. Who in that unfathomable moment of unspeakable, soul agony was going to my hell; taking on himself all the eternal torment of a world of sinners.
It is a love I cannot comprehend. It is a love I can't resist. Those much traveled Bible words well up in me every time I visit that cross. Like a million voice choir in my soul, and those words are our word for today from the Word of God from John 3:16, "God so loved the world..." God loved me. "...so much that He gave His one and only Son that whoever (even me)... whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life."
Have you ever grabbed the hand of the Savior who died for you as if you were a drowning person grabbing a lifeguard? As if He's your only hope? Because He is. The only response to that sacrifice is to say, "Jesus, I'm yours. You bought me. You've got me. Here's my life. Here's my heart. Here's the throne of my life."
If you've never done that, you tell Him today, "Jesus, I'm yours." And I would love to give you all the information you need to begin that relationship and be sure you have it. If you'll just go, after you listen to this, go to that website of ours ANewStory.com. You can go to His heaven because He took your hell.
That Good Friday was an awful Friday. Oh, but it was such a good Friday.