The Interruption of Our Upward Climb
Have you ever found yourself following Jesus because you loved the direction He was taking your life, only to hit a wall of unimaginable pain? He taught with so much power and authority, and His presence brought so much peace, that the crowds loved Him. We love Him when the blessings are flowing. We love Him during what we might call the 'come up.' In our modern faith, the 'come up' is that season where the success is accumulating, the benefits are accruing, the relationships are healing, and the prayers are being answered exactly the way we dictated them to heaven. We want a faith that only ascends. We want the crown, the victory, and the empty tomb. But then, the diagnosis comes. The betrayal happens. The bottom falls out. Suddenly, we are standing at the foot of a hill we never wanted to climb, staring at an instrument of execution. The cross interrupts our plans. It forces us to confront the reality that following Christ is not a bypass around human suffering, but a journey straight through the center of it.
We see this tension perfectly in the story of the rich young ruler. He approached Jesus looking for an addition to his already successful life. He wanted eternal life as the crowning achievement of his earthly resume. But Jesus, looking at him, didn't offer him a five-step plan for better living. The scripture says Jesus, 'beholding him loved him.' Please do not rush past that detail. The devastating demand Jesus was about to make was born out of absolute, pure love. He knew that the young man's possessions were actually possessing him. He knew that you cannot hold onto your idol and hold onto the Savior at the exact same time. Jesus invited him to trade his temporary treasures for eternal reality, but it required a profound letting go. It required the cross.
To take up the cross is to walk into the very place where our pride goes to die. It is not merely wearing a piece of jewelry or enduring a mild inconvenience. The cross is an instrument of death. It is the place where my demand to be the god of my own life is finally surrendered. When we shrink back from the cross, we are shrinking back from the very mechanism of our liberation. We want the freedom, but we despise the nails. Yet, Jesus shows us that the only way to true, resurrection life is through the willing surrender of our own agendas. We have to be willing to let our personal ambitions die on the wood of His cross if we ever want to experience the life He actually intended for us.
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
The Agony of the Forsaken
I mean, what really happened beyond the crown of thorns that marked His brow? Beyond the sign that Pilate put above Him in three different languages that read 'THE KING OF THE JEWS'—a title meant to mock Him, but which was actually announcing Him to the cosmos. Sometimes the insults that the world hurls at you, the very things meant to tear you down, are just inverted declarations of the profound calling God has placed on your life. But beyond the physical agony, what really happened on the cross? People walked by, wagging their heads, hurling venom at the Son of God. The chief priests and scribes mocked Him, saying, 'He saved others; himself he cannot save.' They didn't realize that their mockery was the profoundest theological truth ever spoken. If He was to save others—if He was to save you and me—He absolutely could not save Himself. The nails didn't hold Him to that wood; His relentless love for you did.
From the sixth hour to the ninth hour, a suffocating darkness fell over the entire land. This wasn't merely a solar eclipse; this was the physical manifestation of a spiritual cataclysm. This is exactly why Jesus died. In those three hours of midnight at midday, Jesus was absorbing the full, concentrated weight of human rebellion. Every hidden shame, every secret addiction, every bitter betrayal, every act of violence, and every desperate mistake you and I have ever made was placed upon His shoulders. On the cross, that's where my sin is. On the cross, that's where my mistakes are. On the cross, that's where all of my second-guessings and my deepest regrets are finally, fully redeemed. He became the curse so that we could inherit the blessing. He was numbered with the transgressors so we could be seated with the saints.
And then came the cry that split the heavens. Have you ever been in a place so dark that you felt entirely abandoned by God? A place where your prayers seem to bounce off a brass ceiling, where the isolation is so thick you can barely breathe? Jesus knows the exact texture of that agony. When He cried out with a loud voice, He was experiencing the ultimate horror of the cross: the tearing of the eternal fellowship within the Trinity. He was forsaken so that you would never, ever have to be. When the enemy whispers that God has left you in your pain, point him to Golgotha. Jesus exhausted the abandonment of God so that we could experience the unending embrace of the Father.
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, The Debt Paid
It is incredibly humbling to realize that you cannot fix yourself. We spend so much of our lives trying to manage our image, trying to clean up our acts, trying to present a version of ourselves to God that is worthy of His love. We look at the absolute perfection of God and the absolute wreckage of our own hearts, and like the disciples, we are astonished out of measure, asking, 'Who then can be saved?' If salvation depends on our ability to navigate this life without stumbling, we are all hopelessly lost. But the cross shatters the illusion of human self-sufficiency. What happened on the cross went far beyond what any film camera could present. What happened on the cross was the violent, beautiful release of the freedom that God wants to produce in your life today.
This is where the truth of Romans 5:8 changes the entire trajectory of our existence. God did not wait for us to get our act together. He didn't wait for us to conquer our demons or clean up our mess. He commended His love toward us in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. He didn't die for the future, perfected version of you. He died for the broken, struggling, doubting, fearful version of you sitting right here, reading these words. The grace of God is not a reward for the righteous; it is a rescue mission for the ruined. When you look at the cross, you are looking at the undeniable proof that your darkest moments do not disqualify you from God's deepest love. Your inability to save yourself is the very prerequisite for His grace.
When Jesus yielded up the ghost, the veil of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. That thick, heavy curtain that separated a holy God from a broken humanity was ripped apart by the hands of the Father. Access was granted. The debt was paid in full. The impossibility of our salvation was swallowed up by the infinite power of His grace. You may look at your life right now and see impossible situations—impossible marriages, impossible financial ruins, impossible grief. But the cross stands as the eternal monument that human impossibilities are merely the staging ground for divine miracles.
And Jesus looking upon them saith, With men it is impossible, but not with God: for with God all things are possible.— Mark 10:27, KJV
The cross is not a tragic end to a beautiful life; it is the brutal, glorious beginning of your true life. Your shackles have fallen off. Your shame has been nailed to those rough-hewn beams. The chastisement that brought you peace was upon Him. You do not have to carry the weight of your past for one more second. Leave it at the place of the skull. Look to the Savior who stayed on the cross for you, and step into the impossible, unmerited, overwhelming freedom that He purchased with His own blood. The cross still changes everything, and today, it can change you.