So I'm sitting in church this past Sunday, and I begin to think. Let me back up... Let me Tarantino you for a moment... Pastor Tim did a dramatic interpretation of Barabbas for Easter Sunday. He is very good at delivering messages on Sunday, and this performance was no different. He accurately portrayed the story of the crucifixion of Jesus through the eyes of Barabbas. During the story he showed a few scenes from the Passion of the Christ. The scenes he showed were the scourging and beating of Jesus before the crucifixion and the crucifixion itself. These are the most graphic scenes from the movie, and therefore, bring about the most emotion from the viewer. This is where I begin to think...
So, I know Jesus died for the forgiveness of the sins of the world. In doing so, he, the perfect sacrifice, took on all of those sins on all sinner's behalf. It is up for debate what happened to him between death and resurrection, but what I want to point out is the pain he suffered through. As a perfect being never knowing sin, Jesus' taking on the world's sins was a new experience for him. For us, we cannot fathom the pain that this inflicted on him. The pain of being separated from his heavenly Father, the pain of sin. We can, however, understand physical pain. "God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners Christ died for us." Romans 5:8 We understand the sacrifice, we understand the love, but we do not understand the pain.
God, therefore, in his sovereignty and omnipotence gave us a way to relate. He let Jesus die the most horrible death known to man, beating, scourging, and crucifixion. We understand the physical pain of being beaten with a stick, a whip. We can imagine the pain of the nails and the crown of thorns. We are cognizant of the form of death of crucifixion and the inhumanity of it. This is how God demonstrated the pain that Jesus felt to us. His pain was not in the physical sense, but the spiritual.
His pain from being separated from God through sin was worse than being beaten, scourged, and crucified. What is more, every time a sin is committed it's not that Jesus is re-crucified, but that the sinner is separated from God. That separation is more damaging, more painful than being crucified.
