After the crucifixion, a wealthy Jewish leader named Joseph of Arimathea asked Pilate if he could have Jesus’ body to bury it. Surely Joseph grasped the huge risk in requesting Rome’s permission to provide proper burial for a criminal convicted of treason. Undoubtedly he realized that his reputation and status in the religious community would be endangered.
What gave Joseph, a secret follower of Jesus, the courage to come forward while the Lord’s closest friends stepped back in fear? Was it because Joseph had been living expectantly, on the lookout for God? (See Mark 15:43 MSG.)
Christ’s sacrifice changes everything—both our forever destiny and our daily life—allowing us to live with a sense of boundless hope and resolute anticipation. Yet sometimes I wonder, How often do I ignore, overlook, fail or refuse to recognize God’s presence? Am I truly on the lookout for Him? How expectantly am I living, between “the already but not yet”?
Christ’s sacrifice changes everything—allowing us to live with a sense of boundless hope and resolute anticipation.
These are important questions, today and every day of my life. Because where Jesus appears and how Jesus thinks and what Jesus says oftentimes aren’t what I expect. And I’m not alone. Consider Joseph of Arimathea, Peter and John, and the women who discovered the empty tomb. Despite Jesus’ guarantee, they did not anticipate His death. And after He was buried, what did they expect? Their shock and disbelief when He reappeared provide the answer.
Years ago I received a letter from a friend struggling between the already but not yet. “All I can do,” he wrote, “is live each moment as it comes and be aware of God in it.” His conclusion: “I want to let struggle, grief, and hurt exist side by side with joy, peace, and hope.”
It may not be easy to live expectantly between present and future realities, but I believe it’s the best approach. A mom grieving the death of her son explained, “I’m discovering how grief and hope dance together, often exchanging the lead. Yet without Christ’s sacrifice, there would be no hope—and what a cruel dance that would be.”
Now, that’s living expectantly!
by Fil Anderson
In Old Testament times, people atoned for sin through repeated animal sacrifices. But that was a temporary measure, since the blood of bulls and goats covered sin without removing it (Heb. 10:4). The offering of animals, however, pointed to the ultimate solution: Jesus’ shed blood on the cross—the perfect once-for-all sacrifice for the forgiveness of sins.
Calvary wasn’t some improvised fix to correct the original system; Jesus giving up His life for us had been the plan all along (Matt. 20:28). Scripture reveals that God was never fully satisfied with burnt offerings, no matter how much they cost the person seeking forgiveness (Heb. 10:5-7). To eradicate sin, absolute perfection had to be offered. That’s why Jesus came (Phil. 2:7-8)—and why the cross is a reminder of the greatest sacrifice love has ever made.
To eradicate sin, absolute perfection had to be offered. That’s why Jesus came.
The cross is also an example Christ set for us. When James exhorted believers to “consider it all joy” as difficulties arise (James 1:2), he likely remembered how the Lord “for the joy set before Him endured the cross” (Heb. 12:2). Jesus said that to be His follower, one “must deny himself, and take up his cross daily and follow Me. For ... whoever loses his life for My sake, he is the one who will save it” (Luke 9:23-24). Billy Graham explained, “It was the same as saying, ‘Come and bring your electric chair with you. Take up the gas chamber and follow Me.’ He did not have a beautiful gold cross in mind—the cross on a church steeple or on the front of your Bible. Jesus had in mind a place of execution.”
God doesn’t demand our own blood to pay for atonement but wants us to give our life in a different way—as a living sacrifice (Rom. 12:1), offered up in service for His kingdom. The cross of Christ is more than the wood His body was nailed to 2,000 years ago. It’s more than a symbol, on churches or jewelry, of what Jesus did for us. The cross we carry must be a consciousness of the debt we owe God and the willingness to live—or die—for Him.
by Ann-Margret Hovsepian
Editor’s Note: The devotions for March 21st, 22nd, and 23rd focus on elements of Passover, which Jesus celebrated with His disciples the night before His crucifixion.
During that initial Last Supper, Jesus took the wine and declared, “This is the blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins” (Matt. 26:28). Once again, those words would have stunned Jesus’ original hearers. Every Jew knew about a long story of covenants in which God repeated, I will be your God and you will be My people. It sounded good in theory, but one side of that covenant—our side, in case you’re wondering—perpetually botched the deal. So throughout the Bible, God kept promising there would be one more covenant, not to abolish but to fulfill the old one.
Now, with the cup of Passover wine in His hand, Jesus declared the unthinkable: That new covenant was here, right now, in Him. Jesus summarized that covenant in His micro-sermon—“This is My blood ... poured out for many.” It is for you and for me and “for many”—just as Jesus is the lamb “who takes away the sin of the world” (John 1:29).
Jesus called for our response—“Drink of it, all of you.” Not “think about it” or “try harder to earn it” but “drink it.”
Let’s place ourselves in this scene. Like the disciples, we are the ones who have fallen away. None of us are righteous, and yet we keep defending and promoting our “innocence.” Like all of the disciples, we have or soon will betray the Son of God, and yet there He is, not only eating and drinking with us, but also offering His life, His blood, for us. The words of that long-awaited new covenant from Jeremiah 31:34—“For I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more”—are now being fulfilled right before our eyes.
It is a sheer gift that leads to wide-eyed wonder. But with the wine, Jesus also called for our response—“Drink of it, all of you” (Matt. 26:27 ESV). Not “think about it” or “try harder to earn it” but “drink it.” That’s what faith looks like. In other words, like the cup of wine, salvation is there for you. Jesus holds it in His hands and offers it to you. But you must believe it, open your heart, and receive it—all the way down into the center of who you are. So “Drink of it, all of you.”
by Matt Woodley
Editor’s Note: The devotions for March 21st, 22nd, and 23rd focus on elements of Passover, which Jesus celebrated with His disciples the night before His crucifixion.
For thousands of years the Jewish people had a special script for their most important event of the year—the Passover. Brimming with drama and intensity, the Passover included a carefully prepared order of words, symbols, foods, tastes, smells, and actions. So if the father of the household went off script as he led the Passover meal, everyone present would immediately notice.
And that’s exactly what happened when Jesus gathered His band of followers as death loomed. The evening started like a typical Passover meal—they were celebrating the way Jews had done for centuries ... until Jesus intentionally went off script and started talking about Himself. As the Savior took the Passover bread in His hands, He said something utterly shocking: “Take, eat; this is My body” (Matt. 26:26).
At every step, it is Jesus who initiates.
The Passover was all about deliverance for a particular people (the Jews) from bondage and into true freedom. But the entire storyline of the Bible pointed to an even deeper liberation from a more tragic bondage—deliverance from sin for the entire human race. As He held the bread in His hands, Jesus calmly announced that His broken body would be the one and only source of that deeper, universal deliverance and freedom.
“This is My body which is given for you” (Luke 22:19)—some church historians call this sentence “the words of institution” because our Savior was instituting, or inaugurating, a new chapter in the story about God and the human race. But notice that Jesus went off script so we would know this new chapter comes through His initiative, not ours.
Even as He was handed over to death, the Lord was graciously acting to save, forgive, and bless us. At every step, it is Jesus who initiates. Jesus writes (or revises) the script. Jesus gives us the Lord’s Supper, a meal to share with Him—the one who said, “I am the bread of life.”
And with a simple piece of bread, Jesus declares how salvation comes—not by our striving but by His grace, not as a human project but as a divine gift.
Editor’s Note: The devotions for March 21st, 22nd, and 23rd focus on elements of Passover, which Jesus celebrated with His disciples the night before His crucifixion.
Bumblebees and badgers, lions and skunks, black bears and beagles all have one thing in common: If threatened, they will sting, bite, spray, or maul you. But there’s this predictable trait about lambs: They never attack; instead, throughout history wolves and other predators have attacked them. When lambs are mentioned in the Bible, it’s usually in the context of a sacrificial offering. For example, in the Passover—the central event of the Old Testament—God rescues His people through the blood of a lamb.
So you can imagine the disciples’ shock when John the Baptist introduced Jesus, their Lord and Messiah, as “the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world” (John 1:29). The God of all creation, the one “through [whom] all things were made” (John 1:3 NIV), comes to the earth as ... a lamb?
Someone had to find us and rescue us—even if that meant dying in our place.
It’s a strange story. Christianity is the only view of life that presents a vulnerable God—a God who, in love and for love, subjected Himself to be mauled by His own creatures. Of course, it’s important to note that Jesus the vulnerable Lamb is also the mighty Lamb who rules on the throne, judges the earth, and triumphs in war (Rev. 5:6; Rev. 14:9-11; Rev. 17:14)—but even then He is the lamb “who was slain from the creation of the world” (Rev. 13:8 NIV).
It’s also a daring and original story, the story of us all—broken people who have wandered so far in the wrong direction, sunk so deep in the morass of sin, that we cannot find our way home or lift ourselves out of the pit. Someone had to enter those dark woods of our own making; someone had to descend into our self-chosen chasm; someone had to find us and rescue us—even if that meant dying in our place. And that is the story of Jesus, the lion who came as a lamb. Unlike the millions of sacrificed Passover lambs slaughtered throughout history, Jesus willingly gave His life “to take away the sin of the world.”
God comes to us as a lamb, as the Lamb of God, to prove that He is for us, not against us. Why would you not place your whole life in His hands?
by Matt Woodley
