Christ Died for Our Sins

He was buried…

He was raised to life on the third day.

“Princess Diana has been killed in a car crash in Paris.”

“President John F. Kennedy has been assassinated”/

“Your father has just passed away”.

“Your friend has been murdered on a humanitarian mission to Eastern Europe”.

I’ll never forget exactly where I was when I heard each of these tragic pieces of news.

But the world’s most significant life and death was twenty centuries ago, when the One who was born and raised in obscurity was condemned to be crucified outside the city of Jerusalem. There is a song that asks,

“Were you there when they crucified my Lord?

…Sometimes it causes me to tremble, tremble, tremble.

Were you there when they crucified my Lord?”

How could I have been there, when Jesus was crucified nearly 2000 years ago?

The answer is in recognising that Jesus was dying for my sins. I wasn’t in the crowd shouting: “Crucify Him”, but all the things in my life that are wrong were laid on Jesus as He hung on the cross. He was dying as a substitute, the righteous One for me, who is so unrighteous.

Jesus, the Son of God, loved me and gave Himself for me. Every lie, all my lust, everything in me that is against God; the things I regret, and all the sins I relish, were carried by Jesus on the cross.

Because of His love for me, Jesus paid the penalty that would take all eternity for me to pay.

He did this for you, too. John, a disciple of Jesus and the author of the Gospel of John, when writing to Christians said, “He Himself (i.e. Jesus) is the sacrifice for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the whole world.” So God’s hatred of sin - and his anger against all that is evil - was borne by Jesus on the cross.

For the early followers of Jesus, sadness turned to overwhelming joy when they heard that Jesus had risen from the dead. The stone in front of the garden tomb had been rolled away. This was not to let Jesus our, but rather to let the world look in and see that the tomb was empty. Jesus had risen. The grave clothes were left behind. He had conquered death, and showed Himself alive to hundreds of people.

“Christ died for our sins… was buried and… rose again the third day,” is what the Bible says.

This happened long ago, but impacts us today. You and I can know the living, risen Jesus.

Because of what Jesus did by his death and resurrection, God is willing to forgive all our wrong and to bring us to know Him. God, by His Holy Spirit will come to live within us.

This is a friendship with God, which lasts not only in life but through death and into eternity.

Heaven is not a reward; it is a gift - given to all who will trust and follow Jesus.

Will you, with your mind and heart, go to Jesus, who died and rose for you, and ask Him to be your Lord, Saviour and Friend. That will be a never-to-be-forgotten moment which will change you forever.

That day you trust Jesus Christ is the very one for which you were born.