This Holy Week we stop and remember Jesus came to earth to save humanity by dying on the cross on Good Friday and resurrecting on Easter Sunday. He endured and defeated death as the perfect sacrifice to save each of us so we can choose eternal life. He swung open the gates of heaven, allowing our sins to be forgiven and ushering us in the presence of God.
But Christ proved God’s passionate love for us by dying in our place while we were still lost and ungodly! Romans 5:8
Imagine what Jesus experienced to be our sacrifice. He was betrayed by His closest friends, unfairly tried in a court with liars and false witnesses, beaten mercilessly, tortured, mocked and ridiculed. Then He was forced to carry His cross to Golgotha where He was nailed to the cross and hung. It is believed He hung there for about six hours in complete agony.
Did you know God cares about the plight of widows so much He mentions them more than eighty times in His Word—both in the Old and New Testaments? The first Resurrection Sunday after my husband moved to Heaven God touched my heart with a revelation I never heard before. As I was meditating on the sacrifice Jesus made for me, God highlighted a very special and seemingly insignificant portion of the story most people tend to gloss right over.
Mary, Jesus’ mother, was standing next to His cross, along with Mary’s sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene. So when Jesus looked down and saw the disciple He loved standing with her, He said, “Mother, look—John will be a son to you.” Then He said, “John, look—she will be a mother to you!” From that day on, John accepted Mary into his home as one of his own family. John 19: 25-27
We don’t know when Jesus’ earthly father died. As we study God’s Word it never comes out and says Mary is a widow, but it only speaks of her during Jesus’ ministry from His first miracle changing the water into wine all the way to His death.
What God spoke to my heart that day was how much He loves me. He showed me Jesus cared so much about the plight of widows, He made sure His own widowed mother would be cared for when He was gone. He charged John, the disciple known as the one Jesus loved, to be a son to Mary and care for her. He knew she needed someone to be physically present to assist her with things she couldn’t do, to protect her, and especially to love her and comfort her in her sorrow.
Jesus was pierced, and Mary was too. She stood with her son and watched the horrible sight. Her beloved son, brutally mutilated, being mocked and humiliated. She saw the child she spoke baby talk to now groaned in unforgettable anguish. The child she swaddled, nursed, and held, was now wrapped in death, nursed by anguish, and held up by nails which stapled His flesh to wood.
I tried to imagine how much agony Jesus was suffering hanging there. Every minute that passed He bore excruciating pain and struggled to take each breath. Still, in spite of all He endured, He made sure He commissioned John with this very important task, and He showed His mother how much He loved her and made clear to her who she could now trust to help her going forward. In His dying breath, under the wrath of men, He considered her well-being.
Jesus tells us in John 8: 28-29:
“You will know me as ‘I AM’ after you have lifted me up from the earth as the Son of Man. Then you will realize I do nothing on My own initiative, but I only speak the truth the Father revealed to Me. I am His messenger and He is always with Me, for I only do that which delights His heart.”
Death brings a hurt we cannot defend, a pain we cannot forget, an injury which will never fully heal. Our precious Heavenly Father cares so much about the suffering this hurt brings to widows, He even addresses it right in the middle of the greatest story ever told, and at the height of Jesus’ suffering He endured to take all our pain in Himself so we can live and be free.
He was despised and rejected by men, a man of deep sorrows who was no stranger to suffering and grief. We hid our faces from Him in disgust and considered Him a nobody, not worthy of respect. Yet He was the one who carried our sicknesses and endured the torment of our sufferings. We viewed Him as one who was being punished for something He Himself had done, as one who was struck down by God and brought low. But it was because of our rebellious deeds He was pierced and because of our sins He was crushed. He endured the punishment that made us completely whole, and in His wounding we found our healing. Isaiah 53: 3-5
Grief will ever be Jesus delivering me from the crushing grief pit and setting me on my feet again. I know my Redeemer lives. He died so I can live. This is the message He wants you to hear today.
You are not alone, even though that may be what you are feeling. God sent His Son to die for our sins. When we give our troubles and heartaches to Him, He brings healing and answers. He cares deeply about the plight of widows and He cares about you.
I pray God would give all of us the grace to grieve with weighty tears messily wrapped up in the perspective Jesus overcame the world. He lives and His sacrifice bought and paid for our freedom to live. Seek Him in His Word and pray confidently knowing He will answer our heart cry.
I won’t be pulled in different directions or worried about a thing. I’m saturated in prayer throughout each day, offering my faith-filled requests before God with overflowing gratitude. I tell Him every detail of my life, then God's wonderful peace that transcends human understanding guards my heart and mind through Jesus Christ. Philippians 4: 6-7
I am contending my heart is wrapped in the comfort of heaven and woven together into love’s fabric. This gives me access to all the riches of God as I experience the revelation of God’s great mystery—Christ. My spiritual wealth is in Him, like hidden treasure waiting to be discovered—heaven’s wisdom and endless riches of revelation knowledge. Colossians 2: 2-3
This is God’s Word on the subject: … I know what I’m doing. I have it all planned out—plans to take care of you, not abandon you, plans to give you the future you hope for. When you call on Me, when you come and pray to Me, I’ll listen. When you come looking for Me, you’ll find Me. Jeremiah 29: 11-14
If you don’t know Jesus as your personal Lord and Savior, I invite you to receive Him right now. Don’t waste another moment trying to live this earthly life afraid and alone. I wrote a post on my other blog, Freedom Focused Faith, to help people who want to turn their life over to God and start fresh in a new freedom only He can give. Go here to learn more.
