Born to Die
Read Luke 2:25-35. What is the meaning of this passage? What is the message to Mary? What is its message about Jesus?
This story, told only by Luke, is powerful in its simplicity and profound in its implications. The devout Simeon, meeting at last the Messiah for whom he had been waiting, reveals the infant's future to its parents with cryptic terseness: "This child is destined to cause the falling and rising of many in Israel. . . . And a sword will pierce your own soul too" (Luke 2: 34, 35, NIV). The word for sword in the Greek signifies a huge, Goliath-type instrument, destined to pierce the heart of Mary, a prediction of the agony she would experience at the Cross. "These mysterious words of Simeon must have passed over Mary's consciousness like a chilling and ominous portent of things to come"—The SDA Bible Commentary, vol. 5, p. 704.
What do the following passages tell us about the death of Jesus? Was it something that had to happen? (Matt. 16:21; 26:52-54; Mark 10:45; Luke 18:31-33; John 3:14; Heb. 9:25-28).
The consistent note here is that Jesus was born to die; His death was not an accident. It had to happen. Why did it have to? Well, that is not a matter that can be explained fully by rational processes, not because it is irrational, but because it is suprarational, above human reason. It falls in the realm of Divine revelation, part of that "mystery . . . kept hidden for ages and generations, but is now disclosed to the saints" (Col. 1:26, NIV). The Bible does not go into any long attempt to justify it or to explain it, maybe because it is not something subject to human logic. We do not have other instances elsewhere by which to judge or compare it. Biblical atonement represents a solo occurrence in the history of the universe. And our task is to seek to understand what the Bible says about it and to apply what it means to our own lives.
The fact that Jesus had to die in order to atone for our sin should tell us something about how serious sin really is. How seriously do you take the sin in your own life? What efforts are you making to overcome?
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