March 26 Daily Devotional

Bible Reading

Luke 23:32–35

Devotional

Christ was always surrounded by a large crowd when He spoke and performed miracles. And now the people follow Him in His way of suffering. The multitude crowds around to see this same Jesus who once showed so much power and is now powerless, condemned, and nailed to a cross. The Lord lacked no spectators on His path of suffering.

Who were these people? If the spectators had been true followers of Christ, the Savior would have experienced some degree of peace as He hung on the cross. He could have gazed with His pained and dying eyes upon the eyes of those who without His dying could not find life at all. But they did not look upon Him in this way. They were merely curious people.

“And the people stood beholding.” The spectators simply stood there and watched. They were only spectators. They may have wept or mocked but they did not smite their breasts because of their sins, their guilt, and their curse. They saw His sinless life flow lifeless, drop after drop, but they remained the same. They heard Him call out to His God, but that voice did not wake them up. It is for this reason that their presence by the cross did not lighten Christ’s burden but rather made His suffering all the heavier. The Lord was suffering and they did not know the reason.

“And the people stood beholding.” The people had read the Holy Scriptures. In its pages Christ was revealed as the Lamb who would take away their sins. They sat under the teaching and preaching of God’s Word. Yet, they remained the same. It had not sunk in that their state for eternity is decided on earth. They remained spectators and no more.

“And the people stood beholding.” By nature we are there too. Our hardened hearts and blindness cause us to be mere spectators of Christ’s work in our lives. We do not behold His cross as our cross, our curse, our death, and our guilt. We easily fail to recognize Him as the Substitute for sinners, because we have no need for Him. Do you see yourself at the cross beholding the Savior, maybe not with curses but with no need of Him? Oh, such hardness, insensitivity, and ignorance!

Blessed is he who from a spectator has become a guilty one. He cannot remain standing there in the crowd, but he falls on his knees and cries out, “Oh God, this is how terrible my sin is!” Then His curse becomes your curse, and His death your death. Then this crucified Christ shows you how much you have deserved damnation. Such spectators are truly blessed spectators, though they see their own curse because of God’s justice. For this Savior was everywhere where God’s justice sought Him. Whoever has beheld Him in His humiliation will also behold Him in His exaltation.

 

From The Everlasting Word by Frans Bakker, compiled and translated by Gerald R. Procee. Reformation Heritage Books and Free Reformed Publications, 2007. Used by permission. For further information, click here.