As Paul opens up his letter to the church at Galatia, he reminds the believers there about the significance of the cross and the fulfillment of God's plan of salvation:
3Grace to you and peace from God the Father and our Lord Jesus Christ,4who gave Himself for our sins, that He might deliver us from this present evil age, according to the will of our God and Father,5to whom be glory forever and ever.
The cross was an essential part of God's plan for humanity - even though Jesus was submitted to shame, humiliation, and intense suffering, an unfair trial and mockery - He was fulfilling the plan of God. Jesus was put to death so that we might experience and enjoy His eternal life. And, by our embracing of the cross and surrendering to Jesus Christ, recognizing that we have been crucified with him, we align ourselves with His purposes. Even though sometimes we might lose sight of the end result of God's handiwork, we can trust that the God who sent His Son for us is totally faithful and He is working in our lives, fulfilling His plan, and we can have peace in that.
Just before the death of Jesus, the Jews stood before Pilate to accuse Him, and we pick up the narrative in John 19:
7The Jews answered him, "We have a law, and according to our law He ought to die, because He made Himself the Son of God."8Therefore, when Pilate heard that saying, he was the more afraid,9and went again into the Praetorium, and said to Jesus, "Where are You from?" But Jesus gave him no answer.10Then Pilate said to Him, "Are You not speaking to me? Do You not know that I have power to crucify You, and power to release You?"11Jesus answered, "You could have no power at all against Me unless it had been given you from above.
ChristianityToday.com picks up on a story from Kenya's Citizen News that attorney Dola Indidis has petitioned the International Court of Justice (ICJ) to "declare that the trial of Jesus and the subsequent nailing on the cross went against the principles of fair trial and should therefore be declared a mistrial."
"Evidence today is on record in the Bible," Indidis said, "and you cannot discredit the Bible."
According to a support letter posted on his Facebook page, Indidis is "convinced that Pontius Pilate erred in law by convicting and sentencing Jesus Christ while acknowledging his own lack of jurisdiction and the accused's innovence. I petitioned the International Court of Justice in The Hague to have the conviction and sentence quashed."
Oh, and by the way, UPI.com reports that archaeologists digging in the ruins of church near the Black Sea found a piece what they say might have been part of Jesus's famous cross.
The relic was discovered at the seventh-century Balatlar Church, in Sinop, Turkey, inside a stone chest.
Lead archaeologist Gulgun Koroglu has said, "We have found a holy thing in a chest...It is a piece of a cross."
"This stone chest is very important to us," said Köroğlu, who is an art historian and archeologist at Turkey's Mimar Sinan University of Fine Arts. "It has a history and is the most important artifact we have unearthed so far."
Even though these two stories are completely unrelated, they do bring to mind the significance of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. Now Mr. Indidis in Kenya wants to argue that Pilate lacked jurisdiction and therefore an innocent man was put to death. Jesus put it rightly in John 19 that the authority was given to Pilate by God - and there's a central point of the whole story. This was God's plan, as unjust and as brutal as the circumstances, but Old Testament prophecy told us that the Messiah would suffer for our sins and what He endured satisfied the requirements of God's justice - someone had to pay the price for transgressing God's laws, and the perfect sacrifice could only be made by the perfect Lamb of God. So call it unjust, but the plan of God was unfolding, and Jesus submitted to death out of unselfish love for us.
But, the plan didn't stop at the punishment. The plan continued through the raising of Jesus from the dead. His new life, and His residence in the hearts of His people provides authentication of the will of God in bringing salvation to us. The cross is validated, not because of a piece of wood in a box found in Turkey, and who knows if these latest claims are true, but the validation is that the Son of God came to earth, lived a perfect life, died on a cross according to the will of God, rose from the dead AND is evident in the lives of people who call upon His name. You and I provide the credibility for the gospel message, and we do well to examine ourselves to see if we are supporting the claims of Christ by the way we live our lives.
His plan, His story, continues - it is still being written. And, according to the purposes of God for your own life, He is doing His work. There will be times when we don't see His hand, but we can continue to trust in Him. We can look to the cross and know that we serve an all-faithful God who gave Himself in our place so that He could redeem us from sin. When we submit to the will of God, we find that He will work His plan - and sometimes that plan may not exactly what we think it should be. But, He is in control, and He knows best, and that can remove a sense of struggle for our lives. A retrial for Jesus - perhaps, but it will not change the fact that God's justice, His higher law, was satisfied by His Son's death on a cross. And, whether or not the physical evidence has been discovered, I can know in my heart that the purpose of that cross is to provide for my salvation.
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