Finished!
Jesus’ living was as crucial as His dying- from Your hands Father, back to Your hands! The almost total emphasis placed on the cross in our view of Christianity has lacked a sense of balance. It makes it seem that dealing with sin is at the center of everything. You could conclude that sin is more powerful than Light, Love, and Life! Adam’s fall more powerful and universal in its effect on humanity than the Incarnation of the Divine as Man! Does it make sense that Adam can condemn us all to death, but Jesus can affect only a few? NO! I don’t believe that because He said, “It is finished.” “Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit.” Jesus brought Life, the Life that raised Him from the dead!
The Cross
Many innocent and good people died on crosses. Roman roads were littered with them! Jesus’ death on the cross would mean little if it were not for the Life that preceded it.
His Life
The only way for Him to become the “second Adam,” the “life-giving Spirit,” was to live as Adam did not! Remain faithful in His relationship with His Father!
The Incarnation
However beautiful His life was, which it was, it still depended on something else, the Incarnation, “Emanuel, God with us!” If God was not vulnerable and willing to die for Their children, then there is no claim they can make for us to do likewise! If not, Their Love is no greater love than ours! But it is!
His Resurrection
So, this God-Man would live in communion with His Father. He would undo what Adam did! He would die as our Creator, in our place and in our name! But if there is no resurrection, then His death does not overcome our final enemy, death. Just another good man dies, and sin and death remain unconquered.
His Ascension
If He had not risen from the grave, which He did, He could not ascend to His Father and ours. There would be no man seated at the right hand of the Father forever! No one in the Trinty who knows the depth of our pain, suffering, and sorrows. No man to give grace through the Spirit to His brothers and sisters left behind.
Our Transformation
Does the life of Jesus mean only that the Incarnation became Christmas, Ascension, a day on the liturgical calendar, and His life but a precursor to the cross? NO! It is in His Incarnation, Life, Death, Resurrection, and Ascension that we Live! He came and died, not that we would not suffer, but that we would have the power to Live as He Lived!
The First Born, the First transformed into Life, the First to die into the Butterfly! Jesus Christ!!!