His presence within
He was despised and rejected by mankind, a man of suffering, and familiar with pain. Like one from whom people hide their faces he was despised, and we held him in low esteem... But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was on him, and by his wounds we are healed. Isaiah 53:3-5
Going a little farther, he fell to the ground and prayed that if possible the hour might pass from him. “Abba, Father,” he said, “everything is possible for you. Take this cup from me. Yet not what I will, but what you will. Mark 14:35-36 As prophesied from the Old Testament, the Messiah will go through agonizing pain and suffering in order to obtain the salvation for sinners. In the gospel of Mark, as the Lord Jesus Christ came to fulfill the prophecy, we read about the prayer He offered at the Garden of Gethsemane before His arrest. The humanity of Jesus comes through in this prayer in the garden. You sense His agony as the hour approaches. He asks if there is any other way for people to be saved. I think many of us ask a similar question when we face crushing trials. “Is this suffering necessary?” God allows suffering to strengthen us and help us grow spiritually. “And the God of all grace, who called you to his eternal glory in Christ, after you have suffered a little while, will himself restore you and make you strong, firm and steadfast” (1 Peter 5:10). We learn to depend on Him more. We, too, when we go through difficult trial in life, we asked again and again if our suffering was necessary. But when we let God work His way in our trials, we see and get a different appreciation of God’s presence. We realize that His Holy Spirit is infused into every part of our being. The Lord is going through with us in all of our pain, and He Himself bore all the misery and shame of the cross so that our momentary afflictions would result in an eternal weight of glory beyond comparison. Jesus’ death was necessary. The Lord Jesus Christ had always lived in the light of eternity but went through and experienced the darkness of hell so that all that trusted Him as Lord and Savior would live in the light of His presence forever. His enormous sacrifice means we’ll never be separated from Him.
Blessings,
Noel De Guzman
www.my-wbc.com
