When the Cross Interrupts Your Plans
We all love a good success story. We are drawn to the narrative where the hero overcomes every obstacle, the vindication is swift, and the rewards are obvious. In our faith, we often look for the exact same trajectory. We want what you might call the 'come up'—the season where the miracles are multiplying, the blessings are accruing, and God's favor feels like a warm sun on our faces. The crowds in Jesus's day wanted exactly the same thing. They followed Him by the thousands when He was breaking bread, multiplying fish, and healing the sick. They loved the power. They loved the authority. But what happens when the miracle you are desperately praying for doesn't arrive? What happens when the path of faith leads you away from the cheering crowds and straight up a brutal, lonely hill called Golgotha? We love the teaching and the triumphs, but we deeply struggle when the story takes a sudden, sharp turn into suffering.
If you are in a season right now where it feels like everything is falling apart, I need you to know that you are not alone, and you are not necessarily out of God's will. The disciples felt the exact same devastation. They had given up everything to follow a King they firmly believed would conquer Rome and establish an immediate earthly kingdom. Instead, their 'come up' was violently interrupted. They watched their King be stripped of His garments, mocked by the authorities, and nailed to rough-hewn wood. The cross shattered their expectations of what victory was supposed to look like. It looked like the ultimate defeat. It looked like God had completely lost control of the narrative.
But sometimes, the very insults the enemy uses to mock you are the announcements of your greatest victory. The Roman soldiers and the religious elite hung a sign over His head to mock Him, but it declared exactly who He was to the entire world. They looked at a bleeding, dying man and saw absolute failure. They yelled at Him to save Himself. They demanded that He prove His divinity by stepping down from the wood. But He wasn't there to save Himself. He was there to save you. His restraint on that cross is the greatest miracle in the history of the world.
Likewise also the chief priests mocking him, with the scribes and elders, said, He saved others; himself he cannot save. If he be the King of Israel, let him now come down from the cross, and we will believe him.— Matthew 27:41-42, KJV
The Depth of the Darkness
Have you ever sat quietly and truly considered why Jesus died the way He did? It wasn't just an unfortunate political execution. It wasn't merely about the physical agony, though the torture of crucifixion was designed to be beyond human comprehension. What happened on the cross was a cosmic transaction. When Jesus hung there, the Gospel writers tell us that the sky itself turned completely black from the sixth hour to the ninth hour. It was as if creation itself could not bear to witness the Creator bearing the weight of the world's rebellion. Down in that absolute, suffocating dark, Jesus was absorbing every ounce of human regret, every moral failure, every broken promise, and every shameful secret you have ever tried to hide from the light.
I want you to hear this deep down in your spirit today. On the cross, that's where your sin is. On the cross, that's where your hidden mistakes are. On the cross, that's where all of your second-guessings, your paralyzing anxieties, and your deepest regrets are permanently redeemed. He didn't just look down from heaven and feel bad for your struggle; He physically entered into the agony of it. He became the very thing that was keeping you separated from a holy God, taking the full wrath of justice so that you would only ever have to taste grace.
In the middle of that darkness, Jesus experienced the one terror He had never known in all of eternity past: total separation from His Father. He was completely forsaken so that you would never have to be. When you are sitting in your own dark room, feeling entirely abandoned by God, wondering if He even hears your prayers anymore, remember that Jesus has already been to the very bottom of that pit. He knows the agonizing sound of that silence. He cried out in the dark so that when you cry out, you will always be heard.
And about the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying, Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani? that is to say, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?— Matthew 27:46, KJV
The Veil Torn and the Debt Paid
We spend so much of our lives trying to clean ourselves up before we approach God. We operate under the exhausting assumption that we need to get our act together, fix our lingering bad habits, and present a polished, acceptable version of ourselves to the Creator. But the brutal, bloody reality of the cross shatters that religious performance once and for all. The Apostle Paul reminds us in Romans 5:8 that God proves His own love for us in this: while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. He didn't wait for you to be worthy. He didn't wait for you to apologize. He made you worthy by the shedding of His own blood.
What happened on the cross went far beyond what a film camera can present in twenty-four frames per second. It was the absolute release of the freedom that God wants to produce in your life. When Jesus finally yielded up His spirit, crying out with a loud voice, something massive and tectonic shifted in the spiritual realm. The veil in the temple—the thick, heavy, woven curtain that physically separated a holy God from a broken humanity—was ripped violently in two. And it wasn't torn from the bottom by human hands trying to reach up; it was torn from the top to the bottom by God Himself, reaching down.
That torn veil means unprecedented access. It means you no longer need a perfect track record, a spotless resume, or a religious intermediary to fall into the waiting arms of the Father. The distance has been permanently erased. The heavy shackles of your past have fallen off. The chastisement that brought your peace was placed entirely upon His bruised shoulders. The cross still changes everything today because it stands as the undeniable, historical proof that there is absolutely nothing you have done that is stronger than what He has already done for you.
And Jesus cried with a loud voice, and gave up the ghost. And the veil of the temple was rent in twain from the top to the bottom.— Mark 15:37-38, KJV
Taking Up Your Own Cross
But here is where the gospel demands a response. The cross isn't just a beautiful piece of jewelry we wear around our necks, nor is it merely a historical event we study in a theology class. It is an active, breathing invitation to a completely different way of living. Jesus doesn't just ask us to passively believe in His cross; He commands us to actively take up our own. This is the part of the gospel that makes our flesh uncomfortable. It's the part where the rich young ruler walked away grieved because he had too much he wanted to hold onto, too much comfort he wasn't willing to surrender.
Taking up your cross means surrendering the right to write your own story. It means choosing to trust God even when the path He leads you down goes through valleys of profound grief, unfair persecution, and deep misunderstanding. It means letting go of your desperate need for the immediate 'come up' and trusting that the resurrection is coming on the third day. It means dying to your ego, your pride, and your need for control, knowing that the only way to truly find your life is to lose it for His sake.
Yes, following Him will cost you something. It might cost you relationships, comfort, or your own carefully laid plans. But Jesus promises that whatever you leave behind for His sake and the gospel's cannot even begin to compare to the profound, unshakable peace you will inherit now, and the eternal life to come. The cross changes everything because it fundamentally changes us—from anxious people desperately trying to save ourselves into deeply grounded people who are completely sustained by the Savior.
Then Jesus beholding him loved him, and said unto him, One thing thou lackest: go thy way, sell whatsoever thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come, take up the cross, and follow me.— Mark 10:21, KJV
If you are staring at a dead end today, if you are looking at shattered dreams, or if you are carrying a weight of guilt that feels far too heavy to bear, I urge you to look back to Golgotha. The cross is the ultimate proof that God does His greatest, most redemptive work in the absolute dark. Your story does not end in the grave, and your mistakes do not get the final word. Because He refused to come down from that cross, you get to rise from your ruins with Him. Breathe deeply today, beloved. Your debt is paid in full, the veil is permanently torn, and you are fiercely, eternally loved.