Consider Him
When God gave His instructions to the nation of Israel concerning how they were to live and worship, He commanded them to keep a series of holidays. Each one celebrated an aspect of God’s character, love, and care for His people.
As Christians, we might not celebrate the Feast of Booths or the Feast of Trumpets, and we know that Christ’s death and resurrection fulfilled the feasts of the Passover and the Day of Atonement, but we have our own “holy days,” days of celebration that remind us of an aspect of our Savior’s character, love and care.
As we look forward to celebrating the resurrection of Jesus, it is easy to get caught up in the grand sweep of activity and preparation. We can easily become absorbed in cooking, cleaning, or maybe just trying to figure out what to wear for Easter Sunday.
In our busyness, we become like Martha, consumed with our own weight of responsibility. But as Jesus told Martha, “One thing is needful.” And as for Martha, that one thing is the same for for you and me: time spent with Jesus.
Our world can sometimes seem like a hopeless mess of chaos, wickedness, and sorrow. When we gaze around us at all the ways in which it seems the evil triumph, we can easily become discouraged. But notice what the book of Hebrews tells us:
“Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us. Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God. For consider Him that endured such contradiction of sinners against Himself, lest ye be wearied and faint in your minds.” (12:1-3)
As much as the remembrance of Christ’s death, burial, and resurrection remind us of His love and mercy, they also remind us how insignificant the little “sacrifices” of our Christian lives truly are.
In the grand scheme of things, any suffering you or I might endure, any measure of persecution we might face, anything God might call us to leave behind as we follow Him—all of it pales in comparison to the suffering of Christ, the sinless One taking on the sin of the world and bearing the full weight of its penalty once and for all.
Anything we might leave behind for the cause of Christ can never begin to compare to the beauty, perfection, and holiness of heaven, which Christ left in order to spend around 33 years sinlessly living in a world full of sinful people, experiencing daily the degradation of His own creatures, designed to be perfect, but now marred by sin.
Our trials and tribulations, losses and longings are all so real, so heavy to bear from our perspective. But consider Jesus. Consider what He bore for you. As Hebrews says,
“Ye have not yet resisted unto blood, striving against sin.” (12:4)
Our trials and struggles are real enough, but when we read about the sufferings of Christ on the cross, willingly borne—even with joy in what it would accomplish—we can rest in the knowledge that there is no pain or loss or sorrow that Christ cannot understand. We will never endure as much as He did, and so we can look to Him, for encouragement, yes, but also for comfort.
2 Corinthians 1:3-5 puts it this way:
“Blessed be God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies, and the God of all comfort; Who comforteth us in all our tribulation, that we may be able to comfort them which are in any trouble, by the comfort wherewith we ourselves are comforted of God. For as the sufferings of Christ abound in us, so our consolation also aboundeth by Christ.”
Dear Reader, as Resurrection Sunday approaches, what seems hard about your life? Look to Jesus, take time to ponder the pain He suffered, the loss He felt, and the glories He left behind—all out of love for you. Then look at your own struggles with renewed hope. The same Jesus who endured all that for the joy of saving your soul has also promised His help in our time of need.
“For we have not an High Priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin. Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need.” Hebrews 4:15-16