God’s explosive plan beat death and brought life

Every day we’re asking four questions about part of the Bible. Today Bern Leckie answers:

What did I like about today’s passage?

It is God's boldest action in his longest plan to solve our biggest problem. While God could have inaugurated his kingdom by levelling all corrupt sinners to the ground - and there are plenty of them in this passage - he chose instead to lift Jesus up.

Some of the people who refused to believe that Jesus was anything special when he was ministering must have been incredibly humbled by what they saw. Even before Jesus rose from the dead, the way he died was enough to convince the centurion who stood by him that he was the Son of God.

After that, as we've seen a few times in Genesis too, God loves to deliver the most incredible turnarounds which show his power and intentions. It doesn't get any bigger than Jesus coming back to life from death, fulfilling the promises made over centuries and opening the way for our sin to die with Jesus and our lives to be turned around when we follow him.

What did it show me about Father God, Jesus or the Holy Spirit?

Jesus could not have given any more. I'm always struck by the lowest point Jesus gets to in his life, when it seems like the connection with his Father is broken, and finally he gives up his Spirit. Every aspect of God that we know about shares in the experience of the cross.

This isn't a God who is remote from our experience and judgmental without knowing what it means to be human. God has shared in the worst of what we can go through - not just death, but the suffering and pain caused by our pride and anger, the injustice caused by our corruption, and the agony caused by separation from goodness. He understands, and he overcomes.

What am I going to do differently as a result?

I know to be careful what I wish for when it comes to wanting to share in Jesus' life, which also involves sharing his experience of suffering and death. But I do want to get better at seeing the world from God's point of view and understanding better what I'm inviting people into when I share the gospel as Jesus told us to.

Who am I going to share this with?

The people I know who have been looking around the edges of faith and religion, but need to know the heart of what Jesus and kingdom life are really about.