“It must happen this way”

Last week was the Passion week, which culminated in Easter Sunday.  Many spent the week reading and contemplating the final events of Christ’s life before the cross.

And then this week our Bible reading plan has taken us to that same week again.  Isn’t that just too much about the cross?  Do we really need to read it and think about it again?  We actually won’t read the resurrection account until the 30th of April — isn’t that just too many days to think about the death and resurrection of Christ?  Can’t we just move on to more important and relevant passages?

It’s not too much and there is nothing more relevant for the believer than contemplation of the person and work of Christ.  Jesus Christ is not just the most compelling person in all of history, but He is the One with whom we will be eternally preoccupied.  We do well to be preoccupied with Him now also.

So in Matthew 26 we find Him moving resolutely to the cross (v. 2).  He had previously told the disciples on several occasions that He had to go to the cross and He had often met with varying kinds of resistance from the disciples (e.g., Mt. 16:21-22; 17:9-13, 22-23).  But on this occasion, no rebuttal is mentioned.

It seems unlikely, given their reactions the rest of the weekend, that they comprehended the necessity of the cross, but that is exactly what the cross was.  It was necessary.  Jesus Himself would affirm that later in this chapter:

“How then will the Scriptures be fulfilled, which say that it must happen this way?” (v. 54)

“But all this has taken place to fulfill the Scriptures of the prophets.” (v. 56)

The cross was not an afterthought and a gross mistake of history.  It was necessary to fulfill the promises and plan of God.  And it was necessary to accomplish the redemption of mankind.

And if it was a necessity of Christ to go to the cross, then it is also a necessity for us to think long and often about the cross.

Consider what two pastors wrote about the contemplation of the cross:

“Every time we look at the cross Christ seems to say to us, ‘I am here because of you.  It is your sin I am bearing, your curse I am suffering, your debt I am paying, your death I am dying.’  Nothing in history or in the universe cuts us down to size like the cross.  All of us have inflated views of ourselves, especially in self-righteousness, until we have visited a place called Calvary.  It is here, at the foot of the cross that we shrink to our true size.” [John Stott]

“On whatever subjects I may be called to preach, I feel it to be a duty which I dare not neglect to be continually going back to the doctrine of the cross — the fundamental truth of justification by faith which is in Jesus Christ.” [Charles Spurgeon]