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Have you ever stopped to think about all that Jesus sacrificed? I’m sure you’ve likely heard of all the agony He suffered and the terrible things they did to Him by whipping him. And the historical facts about how a crucifixion works is beyond horrifying to hear or think about. On that cross, not only were Jesus’ hands nailed to the wood, but He had to pull up to take a breath—every time. His mutilated back would scrap against the wood, and it would also pull on the long nails through His wrists—which would likely yank on the muscles and tendons. So, every breath would be sheer agony. Then, when you take into account how viciously they beat him and all the blood loss…

But most people don’t look at the spiritual side of it. Here is Jesus, the Son of God, who was both fully Man and fully God, who is perfect and had never sinned in His life, taking on the sins of the world. That means the sins of everyone who lived at that current time period and every time period sense.

The world today has over seven BILLION people in it. That’s seven billion people and more are born every day. Seven BILLION, each with a myriad of sins on their shoulders. Then, you go back throughout over two-thousand years of history… We literally don’t have a number for the amount of sins He was taking on.

Remember God cannot abide by Sin. He cannot look upon it, so in that moment, God had to abandon His Only Son. God turned His back on Jesus, as the sin of the world came upon Him. That’s why Jesus cried, “My God, My God, why have you forsaken Me?”

The spiritual battle taking place at the cross was more than we could have imagined and it’s something most people don’t think about or consider. So, the physical agony Jesus endured was beyond human comprehension, but can you imagine what the spiritual realm was like? With God turning His back on Jesus as Jesus took on all the sins of the world for all history. That’s not including what Satan and his demons were up to and what the angels were also doing. There is so much we don’t know about that day.

But the one thing we do know is that Jesus became a bridge. Before that, we had no right to come to God because we were covered in our sins and had stored up God’s wrath as His enemies. But because of Jesus, we could come into God’s Presence and no longer be His enemies.

But before the suffering and agony, before Jesus’ death and resurrection, Jesus was in the garden and was deeply troubled. He cried out to God and asked God to “take this cup” from Him. But then, you know what He followed up with?

“Not My will, but yours be done.”

We’ve talked about the importance of that moment and what that means—how Jesus fully submitted Himself to God’s authority. He knew what was coming. The flesh didn’t want to go through with it, but His Spirit was willing.

Later, when the disciples arrived and Peter tried fighting, Peter cut off a servant’s ear and tried to fight back. In his mind, he was trying to rescue Jesus and keep Him from being arrested. But Jesus told Peter that he could call down legions of angels to save Him if he wanted.

In the Old Testament, we’ve seen examples of a single angel of the Lord destroying entire cities. A roman legion consisted of between 4,000 to 6,000 angels.

And Jesus could have called down multiple legions!

Can you imagine how much damage several thousand angels could do? Jesus could have destroyed earth and humankind with it. In that moment, he literally could have, probably with the snap of His fingers.

In fact, all the way back in the Garden of Eden, when Adam and Eve disobeyed and ate the forbidden fruit, when they brought sin into the world, God could have killed them and started over. Or not made any other creatures at all.

But He didn’t. He let us live. He saved us. He kept us alive, knowing that by giving us free will, we would sin against Him. But, He didn’t take away our free will, either, because if He did that, we would have become like robots. True love is giving them the ability to choose. That’s what God did for us.

Jesus willingly walked into the most physically, emotionally, mentally, and spiritually agonizing situation knowing that He didn’t deserve it and we did, knowing that we deserved destruction, that He could have wiped us out, but instead, He became a servant—God’s servant—and suffered and died for us. He chose to give us a way, to become the bridge between us and God.

Take a moment today to thank Jesus for all that He’s done for you!