When the Come Up Gets Interrupted
We love a winning season. We love following a Savior who multiplies the bread, calms the violent storms, and teaches with a power that leaves the crowds speechless. We love the "come up"—the part of the story where the blessings are accruing, the miracles are flowing, and our faith feels like a protective shield against the harshness of the world. But what happens when the come up is violently interrupted? What happens when you find yourself standing at the foot of a wooden beam, staring at a reality that makes you sick to your stomach? The cross wasn't a sanitized piece of jewelry; it was a devastating collision of heaven's love and earth's deepest cruelty.
If we are entirely honest, many of us want the resurrection without the crucifixion. We want the empty tomb without the agonizing, bloody walk to Golgotha. But you cannot understand the freedom of Sunday until you have sat in the crushing, suffocating darkness of Friday. When we look at the cross, we aren't just looking at a historical execution. We are looking at the exact location where human suffering met divine grace. The crowds that had just praised Him suddenly turned on Him. The religious elite mocked Him. The disciples scattered in terror. It is in this profound, agonizing isolation that we begin to understand why the cross still matters to the broken, the betrayed, and the abandoned today.
Jesus didn't bypass human suffering; He walked directly into the center of it. They stripped Him, they mocked Him, and they dared Him to save Himself. But His refusal to come down from that cross is the very reason you and I can stand today. He wasn't held to that wood by iron nails; He was held there by an unfathomable love for a world that was entirely unworthy of it. The insults they hurled at Him were meant to break Him, but instead, they highlighted the very majesty of His mission.
And they that passed by reviled him, wagging their heads, And saying, Thou that destroyest the temple, and buildest it in three days, save thyself. If thou be the Son of God, come down from the cross.— Matthew 27:39-40, KJV
The Agony of the Forsaken
Have you ever felt entirely forsaken? Not just lonely, but utterly abandoned by God and man, left to carry a weight that is crushing your chest? If you have ever been in that dark room of the soul, you need to look closely at the ninth hour of the crucifixion. For three hours, darkness fell over the entire land. This wasn't just a weather anomaly; it was the physical manifestation of the spiritual weight of every sin, every betrayal, and every ounce of shame being placed onto the shoulders of the Son of God. When people ask why Jesus died, the answer is found in this suffocating darkness. He died to absorb the penalty of our rebellion. He died so that our mistakes, our second-guessing, and our deepest regrets could be nailed to those beams and left there forever.
In the middle of that profound darkness, Jesus cries out. It is a scream that echoes through the corridors of eternity, a sound of unimaginable separation. He experienced the ultimate tearing of the Father's presence so that you would never have to. The beauty of the gospel is that God didn't wait for us to clean up our act before He made this sacrifice. We didn't earn this grace. As the Apostle Paul would later write in Romans 5:8, God commends His love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. He didn't die for the sanitized, Sunday-best version of you. He died for the version of you that was covered in dirt, drowning in addiction, and paralyzed by fear.
The mockers stood by, completely misunderstanding the moment. They thought His inability to save Himself was a sign of weakness. They said, "He saved others; himself he cannot save." They didn't realize that by refusing to save Himself, He was saving humanity. The cross is the ultimate paradox. In His most broken moment, Christ was doing His most powerful work. When your life feels like it is falling apart, when the mockery of the enemy is loud in your ears, remember that God does His greatest restorative work in the darkest hours.
And when the sixth hour was come, there was darkness over the whole land until the ninth hour. And at the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying, Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani? which is, being interpreted, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?— Mark 15:33-34, KJV
The Veil is Torn, The Invitation is Open
The moment Jesus yielded up the ghost, something revolutionary happened in the temple. The massive, thick veil that separated humanity from the holy presence of God was ripped in two. And it wasn't torn from the bottom up, as if a man had done it. It was torn from the top to the bottom. God Himself was reaching down, dismantling the barrier, and declaring that access to His presence was now entirely open. The cross changes everything because it means you no longer have to stand on the outside looking in. Your shame no longer disqualifies you. Your past no longer defines you. The blood of Jesus has spoken a better word over your life, a word of absolute and irrevocable forgiveness.
But the cross is not just something we look at; it is something we are called to carry. Jesus makes it entirely clear that following Him involves an exchange. We don't just get to inherit the kingdom while holding tightly to the comforts of our own kingdoms. He looks at us with deep, piercing love—just as He looked at the rich young ruler—and He calls us to let go of the things we trust in more than Him. He invites us to step out of our self-reliance, to lay down our pride, and to embrace the very instrument of our death to self.
Taking up your cross means surrendering your right to dictate the terms of your life. It means trusting Him when the path leads through the valley of the shadow of death. It is an impossible task for our human flesh, but we serve a God of the impossible. The cross guarantees that whatever you leave behind for His sake will pale in comparison to the eternal life and the profound, unbreakable peace you will find in Him. The shackles are off. The veil is torn. The Savior is calling your name.
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 cross is not a tragedy that ends in a tomb; it is the triumphant doorway to your total freedom. When the weight of your past tries to drag you back into the dark, look to Golgotha. See the Savior who refused to come down, the King who took your thorns, and the God who tore the veil so He could hold you in His arms. You are not forsaken. You are not forgotten. You are fiercely, eternally loved, and because of the cross, your story is just beginning.