the collision

Today is Good Friday, commemorating the end of Christ's earthly life. For years I thought, "what a terrible thing to happen to Jesus. And if he was God, why did he let it happen to him?"

Oswald Chambers expounds on this.

The Cross was not something that happened to Jesus - He came to die; the Cross was His purpose in coming. God came in the flesh to take sin away, not to accomplish something for Himself.

The Cross is not the cross of a man, but the Cross of God, and it can never be fully comprehended through human experience. The Cross is God exhibiting His nature. It is the gate through which any and every individual can enter into oneness with God.

The heart of salvation is the Cross of Christ. The reason salvation is so easy to obtain is that it cost God so much. The cross was the place where God and sinful man merged with a tremendous collision and where the way to life was opened. But all the cost and pain of the collision was absorbed by the heart of God. (My Utmost for His Highest, April 6)

Further, it is a grave error to believe that we can earn our way to heaven. God won't admit "good people" because a holy and perfect God keeps a perfect heaven. Only perfection is allowed. The solution was a perfect savior who would take all our sins to the cross with Him. (1 Peter 2:24) All we have to do is accept His gift.

It's a puzzle, isn't it? It defies human logic. Which is why God is God. And why a "terrible" event is indeed very good. Good Friday.