The Meaning of the Cross, Day 35

Welcome to the Day 35 of our series, “40 days of the cross.” Each day we are taking just a few minutes to look at a word which will help us better understand the meaning of the cross.Today’s word is incarnation. 

When we speak of the incarnation, we are talking about God Himself, taking on the flesh of humanity. Missionary Paul Zobody put it this way when he wrote, “The Sovereign of the universe hung on an umbilical cord in a poor Jewish girl” and He did so gladly.

We usually talk about the incarnation at Christmas time. God taking on the form of a human baby. But Jesus was God incarnate for His entire ministry on earth. Jesus was God incarnate as He hung on the cross. In fact, the cross depended on the incarnation.
 

The earliest picture of the crucifixion we know of makes fun of the cross. It is scratched onto a wall in Rome and it may be as old as the second century. It’s a shocking image, showing a man with a donkey’s head nailed to a cross. Next to the cross is a crudely drawn man wearing the clothes of a slave. Scratched into the surface of the wall is the phrase, “Alexamenos worshipping his god.” 

Presumably, one of Alexamenos’s fellow slaves scratched this little cartoon to make fun of him. The meaning seems clear. How can you worship a crucified God? If He’s a god, how can He die on a cross?

As we saw earlier in this series, it was because of the weakness of His human form that Jesus could be killed on the cross. The very incarnation which made God understandable to us made Him vulnerable to death on the cross. 

The cross was not just the result of the incarnation, it was the PURPOSE of the incarnation. In John, chapter 12, Jesus tells some of His followers that the time of His death is approaching. And then, in verse 27, Jesus prays the following. “Now is my soul troubled. And what shall I say? ‘Father, save me from this hour’? But for this purpose, I have come to this hour.” The incarnation, Jesus becoming man, was designed to bring Him to the cross so that He would be killed as a sacrifice for our sins. And through that sacrifice, we now have the opportunity to receive forgiveness and eternal life. He was rejected so we can be accepted. We’ll talk more about rejection on Monday. 

After we pray today, spend a little time thinking about how the incarnation of Jesus, God becoming man, made the cross possible.
 

Heavenly Father, thank You for Your willingness to become vulnerable in humanity through Your Son, Jesus. Thank You that the vulnerability of human flesh allowed for the sacrifice of the cross. And thank You for what the cross means to me. In the name of Your Son, Jesus, amen. 

Thanks for reading today

Continued Monday