The Passion of Christ

The word “passion” comes from the Latin for suffering.

As such it has little to do with zeal and desire, but rather with the sorrow, agony and pain that Jesus endured on our behalf.

Jesus suffered in two ways.

The first is the intense physical suffering of Jesus - even before the first nails were driven through his hands and feet.

This is, for example, the focus of Mel Gibson’s movie, The Passion of the Christ.

But what the movie misses is the second type of suffering: the spiritual suffering of Jesus.

When Jesus cried out those dreadful words, “My God, My God why have you forsaken me?” (Luke 27:47), he was expressing the deep passion of abandonment and despair, of spiritual separation, as he bore the weight of God’s wrath for the sin of all humanity – including your sin and mine!

But Jesus was temporally separated from his father so that we could be permanently reconciled to him.

So there was a purpose to his suffering.

Without Jesus’ death, no one could be good with God.

Jesus did what you and I cannot do on our own.

No amount of personal effort, no amount of doing good, no amount of wishful thinking will replace the necessity of trusting in what Jesus did on our behalf.

But let’s not forget that Passion Week concludes not in suffering, but in triumphal victory.

Jesus rose to life, defeating death itself.

And because of that, through faith in him, we too can have his life for ourselves – a life with God, a life “to the full” (John 10:10).

A life that gives new meaning, a deeper joy, a greater purpose and an unshakable assurance to all we do. A life that can begin today.

~ Contributed by Pastor Chris Taylor of the Deniliquin Baptist Church, on behalf of the Combined Churches of Deniliquin.