April 15 | Good Friday | God's Son
Read Mark 15:33-41
The Son of God. The first confession that Jesus was the Son of God happens at the cross. As He dies.
A Roman guard who watched what happened when Jesus died believed! The sky grew dark. The temple curtain was torn. From top to bottom.
The only other time Mark uses this word “torn” was when heaven was “torn” at Jesus’ baptism in Mark 1:10, as the Spirit descended and God revealed that Jesus was in fact his Son.
Here, the curtain is torn so that the centurion can confess that Jesus is the Son of God.
In both places, something is torn in order to open the space between heaven and humanity, between God and man. It is sobering indeed that God worked such a generous miracle even as humanity cruelly killed His Son.
Countless words have been written in attempts to explain exactly how Jesus’ death on the cross forgave our sins and paid our debt. I am content to confess it is a mystery beyond our understanding. I am content to kneel at the foot of the cross in overwhelming gratitude that Jesus would make a way to tear the veil separating man from God.
Today spend some time in silent gratitude at the magnitude of God’s love that was demonstrated by Jesus on the cross.