He Did It All for Me

Tuesday night in a fitful sleep, I was awakened with the thought “He did it all for me”. I turned over again in an attempt to fall back into a peaceful rest. My mind kept reeling, I thought about this week, the Easter Sunday coming, but above the resurrection I couldn’t help but to think about the cross.

When is the last time you thought about the cross? Maybe you’ve heard it called Calvary. Just the name evokes a sense of horror yet in some strange way…gratefulness. Calvary was called the place of the skull. It was there that Jesus of Nazareth was led; battered, bruised, and bloody up the hill to be crucified. Mind you, He did it all for me.

On Wednesday morning, I began to process my mid-night thoughts and found a verse of scripture to tie the thought together.
Hebrews chapter 12 verse 2 is the verse that I settled on. In it, we find “the joy that was set before Him”, “endured the cross”, “despising the shame”. These three statements made no sense to me, so I began to search and pray for some meaning. 

What was this Joy that was set before him? After a day of contemplation, I believe it was…me. You read that right. The joy that was set before Jesus Christ was not the cross but the result of the cross. If you are a believer, you can see this in your own life. If you are reading and are not a believer, permit me to beg your attention. Jesus Christ saw something in you that is redeemable. When He saw you, he found joy. So much so that he “endured the cross”.

This next statement seemed to make sense to me, endure is to follow to completion. So, Christ completed His work on the cross. This is illustrated when He said It Is Finished. This phrase, always said victoriously, is no doubt a shout of victorious completion. Again, this was done for… me! All of the shame and pain that He endured was to provide a way for all of us to avoid that penalty of death. 

Next, we see the phrase “despising the shame”. On the surface I understood the word despising. I took it to mean he disliked the shame, but I was wrong. The word means that Jesus disregarded the shame. In other words, He thought the shame the He would endure, was a small price to pay…for me. He weighed the shame and His love for me, and His love far outweighed the depth of shame He would face. 

So, I simply ask you today as you prepare for Easter Sunday, to reminisce on the Cross. After all, He did it all for… You! This is more than my Southern Gospel Point of View… It’s the Gospel.

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