God So Loved Us!

May 7, 2022 – Ron Green

For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. John 3:16 NKJV

So to pacify the crowd, Pilate released Barabbas to them. He ordered Jesus flogged with a lead-tipped whip, then turned him over to the Roman soldiers to be crucified. The soldiers took Jesus into the courtyard of the governor’s headquarters (called the Praetorium) and called out the entire regiment. Mark 15:15-16NLT

The soldiers began to mock Jesus. The soldiers stripped off Jesus’s clothes and they dressed Him in a purple robe. A crown made from thorn branches was placed on Jesus’s head. The soldiers began to beat Jesus with sticks of reeds, spit on Him and kneeled to their knees in mock worship. When the soldiers were done torturing Jesus, they removed the purple robe and put His clothes back on Him. Then Jesus was led to be crucified. The Via Dolorosa began. 

Via Dolorosa is a Latin phrase meaning “Sorrowful Way” or “Way of Suffering.” Via Dolorosa is a processional route in the Old City of Jerusalem. Forced by the Roman soldiers, this was the path Jesus followed to his crucifixion. 

As the Roman soldiers led Jesus to the place called Golgotha (which mean “Place of Skulls”), an indecent man named Simon was walking in the pathway. The soldiers ordered Simon to carry the cross that Jesus was to be crucified on. When Jesus reached Golgotha, the soldiers nailed Jesus to the cross and started to gamble for His clothes. The soldiers nailed a sign above Jesus’ head and it read, “The King of the Jews.” Mark 15:26

At noon, darkness fell across the whole land until three o’clock. Then at three o’clock Jesus called out with a loud voice, “Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani?” which means “My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?” Mark 15:33-34 NLT And Jesus cried out again with a loud voice, and yielded up His spirit. Matthew 27:50 NKJV When Jesus took His last breath, the earth began to shake and the curtain in the sanctuary of the temple was torn from top to bottom. One of the Roman soldiers standing guard at Jesus’s cross said, “This man truly was the Son of God.”

For Christ did not enter into a holy place made with human hands, which was only a copy of the true one in heaven. He entered into heaven itself to appear now before God on our behalf. And he did not enter heaven to offer himself again and again, like the high priest here on earth who enters the Most Holy Place year after year with the blood of an animal. If that had been necessary, Christ would have had to die again and again, ever since the world began. But now, once for all time, he has appeared at the end of the age to remove sin by his own death as a sacrifice.

Hebrews 9:24-26 NLT Jesus suffered the death you and I deserve for our sins. At no cost other than believing in Jesus, Jesus did this so that we may have salvation and eternal life through Him. John 3:16 NKJV

⁃ Chaplain Ron