And when they had crucified Him, they divided up His garments among themselves by casting lots. And sitting down, they began to keep watch over Him there. And above His head they put up the charge against Him which read, “THIS IS JESUS THE KING OF THE JEWS.” Matthew 27:35-37.
Today your LORD (יהוה) God (אלהים) says:
Jesus took your sins, the righteous died for the unrighteous. He took the burden and bore your sins, but He Himself never sinned. Even when He took all sin upon Himself, He Himself remained holy. You cannot take the stripes for someone if you also deserved the stripes for your own conduct. This is what I was teaching by the shadow of the unblemished lamb of sacrifice, to cover for your sins, the lamb had to be perfect, had to be pure.
You must be very clear in your understanding of this. Jesus took your sins into His flesh, I accounted your sins to Him and accounted His righteousness to you by His propitiation of your sins by His eternal blood. He took away your bitter end and gave you such a happy end, He took the sting of death away from you. The sting of death is sin, but He took the sting for you when even thought He had no sin He was willing to take yours on to make you righteous before Me.
He took your sins but no wickedness was in Him. He never took on the mindset of sin, only the heavy burden of sin that had to be done away with. He was perfect. He remained pure in thought, word and deed though He was carrying your sins in His flesh. He gave His eternal life in payment for the one you lost. To pay for your loss, He had to have one to give. You cannot pay someone else’s debt if you also are in debt. To take on another’s punishment for their sins you must be free of sin. He was delivered over because of your transgressions, and was raised because of your justification.
For while we were still helpless, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will hardly die for a righteous man; though perhaps for the good man someone would dare even to die. But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from the wrath of God through Him. For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life. And not only this, but we also exult in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received the reconciliation. Romans 5:6-11.
On the day of the crucifixion of My Son, through whom and for whom everything was made, the elements of the earth reacted strongly to the murder of their righteous Maker. The sky went dark, the earth shook, and rocks split apart creating massive canyons in various places on the earth. The sight was so terrifying that it caused the centurion, who had much experience in battles and had seen the death of many sinners, to declare Jesus to be My Son and to be a righteous man.
Judas declared Jesus innocent, in his remorse he told the chief priests and elders he had done wrong to betray an innocent man. Pilate declared Him without guilt. Herod found no guilt in Him that deserved death. And the repentant thief declared Jesus had done nothing wrong and yet was dying there the death of a sinner. And there as He died the Centurion declared Him righteous and My Son.
For it was fitting for us to have such a high priest, holy, innocent, undefiled, separated from sinners and exalted above the heavens; who does not need daily, like those high priests, to offer up sacrifices, first for His own sins and then for the sins of the people, because this He did once for all when He offered up Himself. For the Law appoints men as high priests who are weak, but the word of the oath, which came after the Law, appoints a Son, made perfect forever. Hebrews 7:26-28.
In the last Life Lesson we stopped as they nailed My Son to the Cross and He spoke His first words. Today we will continue.
After nailing Jesus to the Cross and raising it upright, which jarred Him greatly and made His body sink towards the ground so that with His arms extended it made it hard to breathe and to speak. From this you must know that every Word that Jesus spoke on the Cross is of great significance and you should ponder them in your heart.
The soldiers had also nailed at the top of the Cross the inscription written by Pilate as defining His crime. It was written, “JESUS THE NAZARENE, THE KING OF THE JEWS.” Therefore many of the Jews read this inscription, for the place where Jesus was crucified was near the city; and it was written in Hebrew, Latin and in Greek. So the chief priests of the Jews were saying to Pilate, “Do not write, ‘The King of the Jews’; but that He said, ‘I am King of the Jews.’” Pilate answered, “What I have written I have written.” Pilate was again trying to remove all blame or guilt from himself. He had ordered Him crucified because of the charge that Jesus was claiming to be a King that would challenge Caesar’s authority and he was showing the Jews as supporting insurrection while he had put a stop to it. He wanted to be a “friend of Caesar” which the Jewish authorities told him that he would not be if he released Jesus.
Then the soldiers, when they had crucified Jesus, took the tunic and robe off My Son, but the soldiers did not throw them aside. These garments were of fine wool and linen, woven by Mary, and the tunic was woven without seams. Why? The garments of the High Priest were woven in one piece and had no seams so that they could not be torn. This was a skill passed down to those women who worked in the Temple weaving the priestly garments. Mary had been taken at a young age by her parents to the temple and presented there to be raised helping with the work of the women in the Temple. There she learned the skill of weaving the garments for the priests. Her cousin Elizabeth, whose husband was of the priestly class, had helped obtain this for her. Mary returned to Nazareth when she was betrothed to Joseph, having been educated with the young women in the Temple who were dedicated by their parents to serve Me there. Like Hannah did with Samuel.
The soldiers saw these garments were unusual and they had belonged to one whom many of the people believed to be the Messiah, so they took His outer garments and made four parts, a part to every soldier, but with respect to the tunic, seeing that it was seamless, woven in one piece, they said to one another, “Let us not tear it, but cast lots for it, to decide whose it shall be.” Once they had finished dividing up the robe and the tunic among themselves, they sat down and began to keep watch over Him.
The soldiers were Romans and were not believers. They did not know My Word but they fulfilled it. My prophet David more than a thousand years before had written about this very action that they unknowingly fulfilled. Once David had spoken it from the revelation I gave Him by My Spirit, however, he had released it into the earth and at the appointed time, it would come to pass.
I will stand on my guard post and station myself on the rampart; and I will keep watch to see what He will speak to me, and how I may reply when I am reproved. Then the LORD answered me and said, “Record the vision and inscribe it on tablets, that the one who reads it may run. For the vision is yet for the appointed time; it hastens toward the goal and it will not fail. Though it tarries, wait for it; for it will certainly come, it will not delay. Habakkuk 2:1-3.
And what had David written?
A band of evildoers has encompassed Me; they pierced My hands and My feet. I can count all My bones. They look, they stare at me; they divide My outer garments among them, and for My clothing they cast lots. Psalm 22:16-17.
And this is what the soldiers did.
And it was at this point My Son turned His attention to those who had followed Him through the streets of Jerusalem in love and refused to be stopped but had pushed their way through right to the foot of the Cross. His family of faith and His mother according to the flesh. And Mary being His mother, the soldiers allowed her and her few companions to stay close to Jesus on the Cross.
Mary knew who her Son was since before His birth when the angel Gabriel spoke My Word to her. And being educated and raised in the Temple she knew the Old Testament very well. Mary honored and treasured the unique and amazing assignment I had given her to fulfill in her life. And when I revealed it to her spouse Joseph he did as well.
She loved her life with Jesus and pondered things in her heart. Jesus performed His first public miracle at her request. The song she composed that you call the “Magnificat” was one of many that she sang to Me and to My Son, remember she was a descendant of David and had a psalmist’s heart of praise, and expressed her gratitude and joy in the assignment I had for her life. It also shows her knowledge of Scripture.
Mary stayed in the background, serving and loving Jesus, but she was the most faithful of His followers. She never wavered or doubted. She never questioned all the pain because she knew the passages concerning her Son written by Isaiah, just as the passage about her was also written. Isaiah 7:14. She knew what He was undergoing was for her too. She was there on Golgotha having followed Jesus through the trial and the way of the cross. And she stayed with Him through His burial. She never took her gaze off Him. And Jesus was mindful of her and her future welfare even as He hung dying on the Cross.
Though He was weak and had to work hard by pressing His feet into the nails to raise His lungs enough to get air in to talk, His care for her became His second words and the most He said at one time on the Cross. Jesus kept all My Commandments perfectly. He honored and cared for His mother as I had commanded all to do, it was written by My finger on the stone tablets I gave to Moses.
Jesus had addressed this commandment with the Pharisees when they were criticizing Him and His disciples about violating human traditions concerning the washing of hands before meals.
He was also saying to them, “You are experts at setting aside the commandment of God in order to keep your tradition. For Moses said, ‘Honor your father and your mother’; and, ‘He who speaks evil of father or mother, is to be put to death’; but you say, ‘If a man says to his father or his mother, whatever I have that would help you is Corban (that is to say, given to God),’ you no longer permit him to do anything for his father or his mother; thus invalidating the word of God by your tradition which you have handed down; and you do many things such as that.” Mark 7:9-13.
Amid the jeers and mocking of the bystanders and the chief priests and elders surrounding Him, Jesus gazed from under the crown of thorns through His blurred and bloody eyes at His mother, standing with John, the disciple whom He loved and who loved Him to the point of risking his life to be there with Jesus, thus firmly proclaiming his allegiance to his Lord, and His mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene, from whom He had cast seven demons, and who would not budge from His side, the one who is forgiven much, loves much. And in that sea of hostility around Him on every side, He took comfort and fresh encouragement in seeing the ones that stood faithfully by Him though this horrible ordeal of becoming sin for you so that you could become righteous with My own righteousness in Him.
Jesus at this point was separated from Me, divided by the sins that covered Him, for My eyes are too pure to look on sin. I turned My face away from Him and there was a great division between us, He was draining the cup to the dregs for you so that you will never have to drink it. He was going to the dust of death for you so that you will never have to go there. Your life won’t end in the grave or go down to the netherworld of hell once you are in Christ. You will not be swept away in the wrath like a flower of the field that flourishes and when the wind has passed over it, is no more and its place acknowledges it no longer. Psalm 103:15-16; Psalm 90:3-10. You will not be swept away with the flood but will be gathered to Me. Caught up to Me, never to die.
Jesus tasted death and I laid Him in the dust of death so that you will not go there, but as He suffered abandoned and mocked, Mary and John and the other two Mary’s were there with Him.
Jesus therefore pushed Himself up as best He could from the nail in His feet and spoke for the second time. And what did He say? Though He had become sin for you in His flesh, He was still keeping My commandments for His mind was pure. He was providing for His mother. Remember when He raised the widow’s son outside the gate of Nain? He saw to her support and care from her son by bringing him back to life. Here He gave His mother a son in His place, the disciple whom He loved, John.
Jesus said to His mother, “Woman, behold, your son!” Then He said to John, His beloved disciple, “Behold, your mother!” From that hour John took her into his own household. Mary was never left alone or without provision. And John was well supplied by Me, and preserved from all attacks and death, because of Mary. John received a very great treasure for being faithful to My Son. He was the only one of the twelve at the Cross with Mary and he was the one rewarded with the gift of being with the one who knew Jesus better than any other human being. Mary knew and loved Jesus with a love beyond all earthly love. Mary had both divine love and human love for her Son Jesus. And after having her with him, John would later write something no one had ever revealed before, not just that I have love, but that I am love.
John received Mary and with her he received the gift of perfect love.
Mary always stayed in the background, saying as she did at the wedding feast at Canan, “do whatever He tells you.” Not her. It is all for Him. She only points one direction and that is to Jesus. Her spirit found joy in her Savior. And nothing could make her leave His side. And it is still that way in My Kingdom.
When you love Jesus, and that is loving Me for I was in Christ reconciling you to Myself not counting your sins against you, you will be seated with Him in My Kingdom. And He is seated with Me on My throne. So you will all be there with Me. Always, always.
And when I gave her to the disciple whom I love, I also gave her to every one of you. For you are all the disciples whom I love, the little flock of Jesus to whom I give the Kingdom. Jesus shares all He has with you, including the treasure of His faithful mother, and she will always tell you to do His Word as she did, “Behold, the handmaid of the Lord be it done to me according to your Word.” And she will always offer to you the baby Jesus to hold in your arms. For she shares Jesus with you without limit. And she will teach you the same thing she revealed to My beloved John—that I AM Love.
I love you. That is why I gave you Jesus. And that is why I gave you Mary and the body of Christ, for in His body I have given you the blessing of every saint that ever was or will be as your own, as a part of your life and walk with Me too. A cloud of witnesses cheering you on as one with you in Me. But above all I have made you of His body and Him of your body. Do this in remembrance of Me.