I Consent
The events we celebrate this week are among the best known in history. A trial and an execution were carried out in the Jewish province of the Roman Empire nearly two thousand years ago. We all know the details.
Or have those details become so familiar that we don’t really think about them, or consider what they mean for us?
Let’s consider the central figure – a man named Jesus.
We know that on Thursday night He asked His Almighty Father to find another way, to let the cup of suffering pass His lips untasted. And we know that in the end, He accepted that cup in obedience.
For most of us, that initial acceptance would have ended the matter. Once the event began, we would have been caught in it.
But that is not the case here.
In the middle of a famous conversation with the Roman Governor, Pontius Pilate, Jesus calmly states that if He wanted, He could have His angels come and remove Him from the entire situation. He was choosing to stay.
So Christ did not just agree, generally, to suffer and die. He agreed, separately, to every single stroke…
of the whip, every single slap of the face, every single piercing of the thorns, every single step of the road to Calvary, every single nail, and every single second of the agony on the cross.
He did not have to. He did not have to do it at all. Or, since even one drop of His blood was infinitely precious, He could have chosen to spend just that one single drop.
So, why did He do it this way?
Perhaps it was to let us know that when we ask Him, as we all do in moments of doubt or fear, if we can count on His love, the answer is clear. He chose to give all of Himself to us – without holding back even a single drop of His blood. And He let us see that He was choosing to give us each drop, no matter how much it hurt. He was telling us that He loves us – completely.
And all He asks in return is that we let Him. Will we respond to His request with our own, "I consent"?
Happy Easter!