“Hallelujah, What a Savior!”

“And Jesus cried out again with a loud voice and yielded up his spirit.” (Matthew 27:50 ESV).

One thing they don’t tell you as you start getting older is that you get more emotional. I’m crying at the drop of a hat these days. When I see the sweet, innocent face of a newborn, it chokes me up. When I hear our pastor preach a message that honors our Savior, I get choked up when I thank him for his faithfulness to the Word of God.  I don’t even want to talk about hearing a song like “For my sins are all nailed to the cross.”, or “Amazing love, how can it be, that Thou My God would die for me!” Honestly, it’s a bit embarrassing to choke up in church and not be able to finish those glorious hymns. But to quote my brother, “It is what it is!” and I must deal with it.

This chapter of Matthew breaks my heart; I don’t want to recall exactly what it cost the sinless lamb of God to secure my salvation. I don’t want to think about what I did to cause the “Great I AM” to suffer and die, not just for everyone else, but for me. You see, that’s how much God loves us, that even if I were the only person that had ever sinned, Jesus would still have endured the shame, punishment, and death for just me. That’s love, my friends, and that’s heartbreaking. I remember my mother, when she was in her late 80s, would cry at just the thought that her “Precious Jesus” had to suffer the way he did, just for her. I now understand, and my heart breaks for what I put our savior through, and the tears just come.

Chapter 27 is also a chapter of hope, which really demonstrates a verse that we all know and love, John 3:16: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.” You see, God demonstrated His love for us by giving His only begotten Son to die for us. It’s not a pretty picture, but it’s true. It was my sins that nailed Jesus to the cross, it was my sins that He bore, and it was because of my sin that His blood was shed on that old rugged cross where “the dearest and best For a world of lost sinners was slain.”

I don’t want to go too quickly over verses 1-49, which describe all the pain, humiliation, and suffering that my Precious Jesus endured for me, but it is verse 50 that really says it all, “And Jesus cried out again with a loud voice and yielded up his spirit.” Matthew doesn’t tell us the words that Jesus cried, but the gospel of John does, in John 19:30, we read “…he said, 'It is finished,' and he bowed his head and gave up his spirit.”  You see, “it is finished” are the three words that set us free from the power and penalty of our sin. “Jesus paid it all, all to Him I owe”, the holy and righteous One who knew no sin, actually became sin on that cross and died for me. Once we understand how personal the death of Jesus is to each of us, it stops just being an event in history that happened and becomes part of our lives, which changes us forever.

I’m so thankful that God in His wisdom prepared Joseph of Arimathea to go to Pilate and ask for the body of Jesus. Someone who loved Jesus, took His body off the cross, wrapped it in a clean linen cloth, and buried Him in his own tomb. I don’t know about you, but I’m sure Joseph was broken-hearted to see and touch the body of the promised Messiah, knowing that the prophecies of Isiah had to be fulfilled and that Jesus’ body had to bear our sins. I much prefer thinking that I could take Jesus off the cross, lovingly wrapping it in preparation for burial, rather than being the one who put Him on that cross. But truth is truth, whether I like to face it or not, it was for me that Jesus died so I could have eternal life with Him and His Father in heaven.

Thank You, my Lord and Savior, for this precious gift. Like I said at the beginning, Chapter 27 breaks my heart, but the story does not end with Jesus dying on the cross, being wrapped and laid in the tomb. That is just part of the story of God’s plan for our salvation. There is so much more to the story of salvation in Chapter 28. Jesus did not stay in that tomb, but rose again to life, showing He has power over death, sin, and Satan. Because Jesus rose from the grave, those of us who have put our faith in His finished work on the cross also have a blessed hope of our resurrection. You see, death no longer has power over a believer; sin no longer has control over how we spend our lives. We have now been purchased; the blood of Jesus has bought us. We have a living savior, one who demonstrated His love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

My friends, let me break the news to you: the older you get, the more emotional you become, especially over the fact that it was for your sins that Jesus had to die. I pray this truth will never stop gripping your heart and causing you to say with me, “Hallelujah, What a Savior!”

"Living in Grace is not about what I can do, but about what Jesus has already done!"