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Transcription
Welcome to Christchurch's Daily Devotion for March 4th, 2024. Today we will be reading from Matthew chapter 27, verse 45-46 and Luke chapter 23, verses 44-46. From noon until three in the afternoon, darkness came over all the land. About three in the afternoon, Jesus cried out in a loud voice, which means, It was now about noon and darkness came over the whole land until three in the afternoon, for the sun stopped shining and the curtain of the temple was torn in two. Jesus called out with a loud voice, Father, into your hands I keep my spirit. When he had said this, he breathed his last. We cannot imagine a worse thing happening to us. Jesus' wrists had been spiked into the cross piece, which was lifted up with him attached and then connected to the vertical piece. Then his legs were slightly bent and his ankles were spiked to the vertical piece. This began a three-hour ordeal of him straightening his legs to take his weight off of his diaphragm, getting an agonizing breath, and then giving into the excruciating pain in his ankles and sliding back down on the cross. But the worst pain for Jesus was the feeling of separation from his Heavenly Father as he took on our sin. Having never known sin and the attendant separation in his entire life. Jesus remembered Psalm 22, My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? The Son and the Father are one, and yet in that time of agony and suddenly bearing our sin, Jesus decided the intimacy of their relationship. He felt alone. Luke tells us that Jesus also remembered and uttered words from Psalm 31, Into your hands I commit my spirit. In his worst moment unimaginable, Jesus was faithful. Your personal worship option today is to pray with me. Help me, Almighty God, to be faithful to you in my darkest times. Sometimes I want to blame you, and sometimes I even wonder if you are real. I know you are real, that you love me, and that you will be with me. Just let me remember and be faithful. Amen.
