Maybe we think it simply means when something bad happens we should remind ourselves that Jesus died for our sins. Right?
True, this is the gospel. But how does that really apply to our sleep deprived days, our mind numbing waiting, our deep seeded and burning worries in the everyday of our lives?
Grace? Yes. Mercy? Yes. Love? Yes. But the Gospel? How does it apply?
What if we are looking at it from the wrong angle? There are some things that just putting a Jesus band-aid on wont really help. Some hurts that are so powerful or perhaps still so ordinary, that just saying "Jesus died," doesn't seem to fit. You have to go deeper. Not deeper than Jesus, but deeper than our superficial view of Jesus.
What He did on the cross effected more than just the moment of salvation... But our entire being.
In our relationships:
He looked down into eternity and saw a man and a woman. His son and His daughter. Never in their brokenness could they have loved each other enough to make it work. Never could there have been much more than sorrow, pain and selfishness. But in His great love for them, He reached out. Filled the space between them. Cleansed the sins they commit. Washed away the words they say to each other. Covered the multitude of sins with His love. And made it so that they could be together in love and friendship...Where they would have never been able to love each other in their own strength, He loved them enough to save them from themselves.
In our pasts:
A girl with scars on her heart. From the ordinary brokenness of being human. Taken in by a King who saw her as special and bore the scars of her sins for her. He looked out into her life and took her in when no one else could see past the average girl. He makes her scars lovely as a testament of His own scars. As a sounding board for truth, mercy and redemption. Because her everyday struggle, bearable though it may seem, was not where He wanted to leave her.
In the very act of sin:
The person watching the pictures on the screen. Seeing things that should never be seen. Longing to stop, longing to stay. He reaches out into that moment claims them again, as His own. Washing them clean as if today were the first day of their new-birth.
What Jesus did was not just for a moment and then it is gone. He is outside of time. Grace is bigger than that. What He did, who He is, lives with us in each moment. In the triumphs and failures, grace is sufficient and the Gospel reaches out and covers so much more than just a prayer we say on our knees when following Jesus sounds like a nice idea...The Gospel follows us to that time when it sounds like anything but a nice idea. When following is the hardest thing you can do.
Jesus. My Jesus is more than just a God who died. He is a God who lives. A God who lives with me.
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