The Heartbreaking Truth of the Resurrection

Easter is just around the corner and I felt led to share what’s been on my heart recently. I’ve noticed that most of the talk about Easter has become centered around finding a church service with the best family activities like egg hunts, seeing the Easter Bunny and of course chocolates and candies for the kids. More people are attending Church simply because its “the thing to do” on this day (and don’t get me wrong, it’s great that they decided to attend a Church service no matter the reason because we know God works in many ways), but the majority won’t be going back the following week.

It pains me to say, but even we, as Christians, have somehow become so desensitized to the cross and the resurrection. It’s become one of these things where we can casually just throw the sentence “Yeah Jesus died for my sins and rose again on the third day” around with little to no emotion or even the slightest bit of consideration to what that actually means. I believe we need a little reminder and break down of the significance of what Jesus truly did for us… for you.

There would be no Easter celebration if Jesus wasn’t resurrected. In order for there to be a resurrection, Jesus needed to die. So let’s take it back to the Garden of Gethsemane for a moment.

Can you imagine loving someone so much that you would be willing to die for their sake? Once again, expressions like “I love you to death” are thrown around so often we become accustomed to hearing it – but stop and imagine if you actually had too…

Picture this:

You’re going to a place you typically go to pray, be alone or find rest. You bring along those closest to you. These are the people you’ve been through thick and thin with, the ones that swear to you they will be by your side no matter what – the ones you call your family. You know that soon the time will come where you will have to face gross humiliation, brutally intense torture and eventually your death – not because of anything you’ve done, but for the sake of saving those you love.

So you tell those with you to stay by your side and keep watch during this heavy moment for you as you go and pray.

Mark 14: 32-36  (NLT)
They went to the olive grove called Gethsemane, and Jesus said, “Sit here while I go and pray.” He took Peter, James, and John with him, and he became deeply troubled and distressed. He told them, “My soul is crushed with grief to the point of death. Stay here and keep watch with me.” He went on a little farther and fell to the ground. He prayed that, if it were possible, the awful hour awaiting him might pass him by. “Abba, Father,” he cried out, “everything is possible for you. Please take this cup of suffering away from me. Yet I want your will to be done, not mine.”

Jesus, fully God and fully man, knew and understood exactly what He was about to encounter and endure very soon. He knew what doing the Father’s will would cost him. Jesus was not trying to get out of his task, rather he was expressing his true feelings to the Father. He didn’t want to endure this horrible experience but he prayed “Yet I want your will to be done, not mine.” Jesus was willing to pay any price to gain what is priceless – eternal life for his people.

The “cup” of suffering Jesus was referring to was the agony of being alienated from God, his Father, on the cross. The sinless son of God took upon all of our sins and in his humanity was separated from God for a while so that we could be eternally saved.

In Luke 22:44 (ESV) it states “And being in agony he prayed more earnestly; and his sweat became like great drops of blood falling down to the ground.”

This describes a rare, but very real, medical condition called Hematidrosis which causes one’s sweat to contain blood. As gotquestions.org describes it, “the sweat glands are surrounded by tiny blood vessels that can constrict and then dilate to the point of rupture, causing blood to effuse into the sweat glands. The cause of hematidrosis is extreme anguish.”

Now let’s go back to the moment where you told your loved ones to stay with you in the midst of your hardest, most challenging and difficult time and keep watch. Imagine, after pouring out your heart in prayer, knowing the suffering you are about to go through in order to save them – the ones you love so dearly – and you return and you find them… fast asleep. This happens not once, not twice, but three times.

Mark 14: 37-42 (NLT)
Then he returned and found the disciples asleep. He said to Peter, “Simon, are you asleep? Couldn’t you watch with me even one hour? Keep watch and pray, so that you will not give in to temptation. For the spirit is willing, but the body is weak.”  Then Jesus left them again and prayed the same prayer as before. When he returned to them again, he found them sleeping, for they couldn’t keep their eyes open. And they didn’t know what to say. When he returned to them the third time, he said, “Go ahead and sleep. Have your rest. But no—the time has come. The Son of Man is betrayed into the hands of sinners. Up, let’s be going. Look, my betrayer is here!”

Soon you catch a glimpse of a crowd of men armed with swords and clubs coming for your arrest. You know that because they have no valid reason to arrest you, they will have to find witnesses that will distort the truth, come up with a variety of lies against you and false political narratives in order to inflict capital punishment – your death sentence. Leading this group of men is one who claimed to be all for you, someone you provided for, shared your own food with, someone you allowed in to be a part of your family – someone you will be dying for! That person comes, and with a kiss on your cheek, betrays you in the hands of those blinded by an intense hatred for you, desperately seeking your death.

We go on to read:

Matthew 26: 55-56 (NLT)
Then Jesus said to the crowd, “Am I some dangerous revolutionary, that you come with swords and clubs to arrest me? Why didn’t you arrest me in the Temple? I was there teaching every day. But this is all happening to fulfill the words of the prophets as recorded in the Scriptures.” At that point, all the disciples deserted him and fled.

Right after being betrayed by Judas, the other band of men – the ones closest to him that a few hours earlier made mighty oaths and swore to never leave Jesus, the ones that said they would rather die than desert their Lord – at that point, all deserted him and fled.

My point in writing this is not with the intent of pointing fingers at the disciples or boasting how we would not have done the same or that we are somehow better – we’re not. That’s the point! We have all sinned and fallen short of God’s glorious standard (Romans 3: 23-36). I just want us to truly grasp the depth of what Jesus went through… for us!

Now, there are so many more things I could say and many more details I could mention and comment on, but I want to direct your attention to the cross. You know, the thing we wear as a nice piece of jewelry and the phrase we so casually say as believers “Jesus died for us on the cross” yet fail to think about what that actually meant.

This is The Cross

Most people don’t realize that with all of the events leading to Jesus’ betrayal, arrest and torture Jesus had not slept for 28 hours. Sleep deprivation not only intensifies fatigue but pain as well. After the Last Supper, Jesus had nothing to eat or drink. This means his mouth was dry, he was dehydrated, his throat muscles were weakened followed by chest congestion and fatigue making it difficult to talk. As we saw earlier, Jesus suffered Hematidrosis where he was sweating drops of blood. The result of this would cause his skin to become extremely tender and fragile which would make it a lot easier for his skin to be torn. This would have made Jesus’ physical injuries even more painful.

Prior to a crucifixion, “the person to be whipped would be stripped of his clothes, tied to a post or pillar, and beaten until his flesh hung in shreds. There was no maximum number of strokes: the whipping could go on as long as the solider administering it wished.” Jesus was struck with a whip that was made of “leather thongs with metal balls woven into them” plus “pieces of sharp bone.” The objective was to bring a person as close to death as possible without actually killing him (many would end up dying from this type of severe beating even before they could be crucified).

Jesus’ back was not just merely bleeding or marked with red welts. Jesus’ flesh was quite literally torn. With this type of scourging it was not uncommon for a victim’s back to be shredded to the point that part of the spine becomes exposed from the deep and severe cuts. Jesus’ scourging and the lashings he endured would have been more severe than normal due to the fact that the decision to scourge Jesus was made before it was determined he would be crucified.” After Jesus was scourged Pilate attempted to release him before eventually handing him over to please the angry mob.

As if that was not enough, on top of this, unlike any other crucifixion, Jesus was being mocked as King of the Jews – further adding to the pain and blood loss he endured – he was made to wear a crown of thorns that cut deep into Jesus’ already very fragile skin causing more bleeding around the scalp. Then, Jesus was struck several times in his head to drive the thorns further and deeper in his skin to amplify the bloodshed and pain. While wearing the robe that Jesus’ mockers and tormentors forced onto him, his back would have begun to clot and this excessive blood loss along with the dehydration would have sent his body into a shock which would cause “pericarditis” leading to intense stabbing pains in the chest – all this prior to the nails being hammered into his wrists and feet.

“The positioning of a person on the cross was designed to create the most discomfort possible, from the way one’s hands were raised to the side to the angle of knees and hips.” Once the nails were driven into Jesus’ hands and feet, he would have to “continually push against the feet in order to breathe and doing so would send pain signals through every nerve.”

Jesus experienced great agony as his back would rub against the wood each time he struggled to inhale and exhale. “Adequate exhalation required lifting the body by pushing up on the feet, then flexing the elbows and pulling the shoulders inward. In order to accomplish this feat, all of Christ’s weight would have been focused in His feet causing searing pain.” This build up of carbon dioxide from not being able to properly exhale would have added further to his severe cramping.

Then, a spear was thrust through Jesus’ organs releasing blood and water. Jesus, our Messiah, was barely alive before being put on that cross for the crowd to watch him go before their eyes in complete agony and certainly, without a doubt, dead when taken down from the cross.

The Real Meaning of Easter – The Resurrection

The resurrection would mean nothing unless Jesus Christ actually died. Those who try to refute the evidence of His death that suggest He was hidden somewhere and nursed back to health defeats logic. “The gospels do not depict a weak, ailing Jesus displaying jagged, oozing wounds so that He could have recovered by the third day.” The disciples saw Christ in good health, his holes were visible but healed (John 20:27) with energy to continue his ministry for some time.

As we understand the message of the cross and what Jesus actually endured to save us, my prayer and hope is that next time we hear “Christ died for our sins” we won’t be desensitized to it, but rather, we would have a humble understanding of the true sacrifice Jesus went through so that you, yes you, the one reading this, could be saved from the penalty of your sins – hell. Let Jesus’ sacrifice humble us. Knowing what Jesus went through, just for you, how can we ever have such a strong pride to think that we don’t need His saving and that somehow we are “good enough” on our own by our own “good” works. If you were the only person in this world, Jesus would have still taken up the cross just for you. This free wonderful gift of the cross doesn’t cost us anything, but it cost Jesus everything.

And with that, I want to wish everyone a Happy Resurrection Sunday!