Matthew 15:33-41
Jesus Dies on the Cross
33 Now when the sixth hour had come, there was darkness over the whole land until the ninth hour. 34 And at the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice, saying, “Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?” which is translated, “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?”
35 Some of those who stood by, when they heard that, said, “Look, He is calling for Elijah!” 36 Then someone ran and filled a sponge full of sour wine, put it on a reed, and offered it to Him to drink, saying, “Let Him alone; let us see if Elijah will come to take Him down.”
37 And Jesus cried out with a loud voice, and breathed His last.
38 Then the veil of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. 39 So when the centurion, who stood opposite Him, saw that He cried out like this and breathed His last, he said, “Truly this Man was the Son of God!”
40 There were also women looking on from afar, among whom were Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James the Less and of Joses, and Salome, 41 who also followed Him and ministered to Him when He was in Galilee, and many other women who came up with Him to Jerusalem.
John 13:31-35
Jesus Gives a New Command to His Disciples: Love One Another
31 When he was gone, Jesus said, “Now the Son of Man is glorified and God is glorified in him. 32 If God is glorified in him, God will glorify the Son in himself, and will glorify him at once.
33 “My children, I will be with you only a little longer. You will look for me, and just as I told the Jews, so I tell you now: Where I am going, you cannot come.
34 “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. 35 By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”
John 16:31-33
We Will Have Troubles in this World
31 “Do you now believe?” Jesus replied. 32 “A time is coming and in fact has come when you will be scattered, each to your own home. You will leave me all alone. Yet I am not alone, for my Father is with me.
33 “I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.”
The symbol of the cross is a most interesting one...Crucifying someone in the time of Jesus was a tortuous and a suffering death...And His crucifying death meant something very much to the world...So when a believer sees a cross today or a cross symbol, they think of different things or Someone...The symbol of the cross is the symbol to me, that represents Jesus and Christianity and the faith of His followers...The crucifixion is an interesting symbol used to depict Jesus and all of His teachings...Wearers of the cross are followers of Jesus...The crucifixion of Jesus was both one of the saddest and darkest hours for mankind, yet it represents one of the gladdest hours of mankind...And the darkness could not withstand the Light...Jesus suffered and died for our sins on the cross, on the day of His death...The time of His death is a dark time, yet the time is marked by life itself...A new life, with a new beginning...And the new beginning of life was His resurrection...So even though the symbol of the cross is a dark, tortuous death, it is often seen as a more pleasant icon...The symbol of the cross may even be seen as one of LOVE...And how ironic that is, with the One we love dying on a cross, seen by the Roman officials and the Jewish Sanhedrin as a criminal, yet one at the same time representing love...They hung Jesus from a cross and He made it the most special of things...On the cross and out of His LOVE, He gave Himself, all of Himself...
So there is this great tragedy and great negative in what happened to Jesus, but there is this gladness He brings, and a positive time...His death represents this great paradox...Tortured and hung on the cross Jesus knows what it is like to be in a tragic moment of life...He is not immune to the tragedies and pains of our life...He knows what His pain felt like, and so He also knows what our pain feels like...He actually and did literally die, while suffering on the cross...
It is remarkable to me that the cross represents so many differing and various things...What is amazing is that at anytime He could have just walked away from the cross and the torture He was going through, since He is Divine...But He chose to stay on the cross and suffer and die for each one of us...He willingly died for us, when He did not have to -because of His Divine nature...He willingly suffered with pain on the cross and first handed knows what suffering, pain, and death are...He knows how each of us are affected by our own pains, sufferings, and death...We will have troubles in this world as He told us...And we get the idea, of how much our sins means to our Father, in a negative way...Sinning means enough to God that He would send His Only Son to His death on the cross...And when I think of Jesus hanging on the cross, I must say and think that is what my sins did to Him...My sins caused His death, and He died for each of us on the cross that day...And in all of the suffering on the cross, I clearly see forgiveness...I see very much a forgiving Father...
One might have think Christianity would be represented by a brighter, gentler, kinder image, instead of a tragic one for a Son's life and a death on a cross...And Jesus never mentioned this symbol to His Disciples to use (it) after His death that would represent Him...What He told His Disciples before His death was in sense a symbol for being a Disciple of His...He told them to "Love One Another"...And if they loved one another then everyone would know that they were Disciples of His...We see this LOVE on the cross...We see that the cross represents LOVE...