Welcome to Day 39 of Journey to the Cross, a forty-day devotional of Easter preparation. Yesterday we saw Jesus down on bended knee, serving His people. Today we will see Jesus lifted up on the cross, again in service to His people.

Judas betrayed Jesus and Jesus was taken before several different leaders, which is reflective of the times in Jerusalem. Finally He ends up before the Roman governor Pilate. Pilate found no grounds on which to charge Jesus and offered to release Him, but the crowd chose to release another, a Zealot named Barabbas, instead of Jesus.

To satisfy the Jewish leaders, Jesus was taken to be beaten and mocked by the Roman soldiers. Pilate again brought Jesus out, saying that there was no grounds on which to charge Jesus. But the chief priests and temple servants stirred up the crowd to shout “Crucify!” After continuing to release Jesus yet satisfy the Jewish leaders, Pilate gave into their demand to crucify him.

They led Jesus away to Golgotha (the place of the skull), to be crucified. Pilate made a sign that placed the charge: “Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews.” This didn’t make the Jewish leaders very happy, but Pilate said, “What I have written, I have written.” You can read a more complete account of these events in John 19:1-27. But now we come to the Scripture I want to focus on for today.

After this, when Jesus knew that everything was now finished that the Scripture might be fulfilled, he said, “I’m thirsty.” A jar full of sour wine was sitting there; so they fixed a sponge full of sour wine on a hyssop branch and held it up to his mouth. When Jesus had received the sour wine, he said, “It is finished.” Then bowing his head, he gave up his spirit.

John 19:28-30

Jesus’s journey to the cross was finished. As He hung on the cross, His pain was just beginning. His arms were outstretched, with nails in His hands. A nail was driven through His feet as well. As He tried to support the weight of His body, He endured unimaginable physical pain. If He didn’t push up, not only was gravity pulling against the nails, but His lungs could not expand to give Him breath. So every single breath was painful work.

In this suffering of Christ Jesus, God demonstrated the lengths to which he would go to show us His compassion. He wraps us up in His mercy, to envelop us with His grace. The word compassion is made up of two Latin words which, taken together, mean “to suffer with.” God does more than this for us with Christ on the cross. He doesn’t just suffer with us; He suffered for us.

The Almighty God does not have to wonder what a painful journey through life feels like. Hebrews 4:15 reminds us, “For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who has been tempted in every way as we are, yet without sin.” He went through a human life, experiencing all that we have. Yet He did more, for “He made the one who did not know sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Corinthians 5:21). Jesus’s journey took Him through life and to death – for you. Even still today, God has compassion for you. He wants to walk with you through your life and carry your burdens.

Jesus’s journey did not end in pain and suffering though. He went through pain and suffering to end suffering. He told the thief on the cross, “Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in paradise” (Luke 23:43). After He died, Jesus ascended to the Father. But in dying, He destroyed sin’s power to hurt you. He destroyed death’s power to destroy you. In compassion, Jesus suffered and died to create a road that leads out of misery, out of suffering, and into life.

If you are in Christ, your journey will not end in suffering because Jesus’s journey did not end there. Jesus’s journey continued on, to the tomb (which we will examine tomorrow) and through the tomb into life eternal in the kingdom of God.

Today as you pray, say something like: “O great God, you have shown me the depths of Your compassion and given me amazing hope for my own journey through this life and beyond through the journey of Your Son Jesus. Thank you for sending Your only begotten Son to die in my place, paying for my sins and purchasing my redemption into Your kingdom.”

Thank you for joining me for Day 39. Come back tomorrow as we reflect on Jesus’s strange journey.