It is fascinating to ponder the childhood of the God-Man Jesus.
Anne Rice in her novel Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt, suggests little Jesus must have been the best student in Cairo, his brilliant teachers begging Joseph not to take the young family back to Israel.
Fiction aside, we know that as Jesus grew, He recognized He was not like other kids. He possessed a holiness they lacked. He must have known His connection with the Heavenly Father far exceeded that of His mother and father and the local rabbis.[1]
But at what point did this brilliant student of the scriptures realize that His mission would require Him to die on a cross? First, Jesus had to overcome the misunderstanding of all the prophets and rabbis who had gone before: God had revealed to them only a single coming of the Messiah. No one, not Daniel, Isaiah, or anyone else had been able to tease out the distinction—the Messiah would come once as a humble Man on a donkey, then a second time as a Conquering King leading the armies of heaven on His White Stallion.
But once the young Jesus realized that half the Messianic scriptures applied to a first coming, and half to a second, all the previously enigmatic prophecies of suffering would have suddenly fallen into place.
Suddenly it becomes clear: the Messiah will come, die as a sacrificial lamb to provide atonement for sins, come back from the grave as Jonah came out of the belly of the fish, ascend to heaven, then return as Conquering King.
But to a young man with human roots, living in a human body, an imminent death must have been overwhelming. His brothers and friends would learn a trade, get married, raise a family and live to a ripe old age. But Jesus would preach, heal the sick, and die on a cross while still a very young man.
Not only that, the cross would be so much harder for Him than for other crucifixion victims. Jesus knew He faced an infinite suffering so severe only one with the infinite mind of God could comprehend it. This was not mere physical torture, child’s play by comparison, but the insufferable burden of spiritual darkness, of inhabiting the sins of humanity in order to pay for those sins. Only a God-Made-Flesh could endure it.
I believe Jesus grasped the nature of His terrible death early-on, then had years to prepare and adapt to what He knew was His destiny. That is, He had years to begin to recognize and appreciate “the joy set before Him” (Hebrews 12:2) so that when the day came—after an agonizing prayer in the Garden—Jesus could march boldly toward the cross, courageous and prepared to endure infinite suffering, knowing it would buy Him the redemption of millions of human souls.
He loved us, even those of us not yet born, and He knew the great joy that would follow His sacrificial death. He knew the joy it would bring to Him—the joy of being reunited with His children, the joy of rescuing sheep that had been lost.
Thus, by the time His ministry began, Jesus had the end in mind. He spoke of His death often. The synoptic gospels—Matthew, Mark, and Luke, three books with similar content in similar order—report three times Jesus predicted His death (a total of nine scriptures).[2] The Book of John includes many more, some of them subtle, such as Jesus saying “you will lift up the Son of Man,” but not elaborating further, John 8:28.
Consider John 10. Jesus describes Himself as a shepherd. OUR shepherd. It is a picture of love, protection, and sacrifice:
“I am the Good Shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep … I lay down My life for the sheep … I am laying down My life so I may take it up again. No one takes it from Me, but I lay it down on My own. I have the right to lay it down, and I have the right to take it up again. I have received this command from My Father” John 10:11-18.
So. WHY DOES THIS MATTER? It matters because I want you to be convinced: Jesus knew what He was doing. He KNEW the cross lay at the end of His ministry. He knew before His baptism that His journey would end in death. He may even have known as a twelve-year-old in the temple. I don’t know. But I believe that Jesus probably understood ten, maybe 15 years before His ministry began, that those three years as a traveling preacher would end with Him flogged nearly to death, nailed to a cross, then burdened one sin-at-a-time with the guilt and shame of all the sins of human history.
How could He endure all that in only a few hours on the cross? He was God. His infinite heart and infinite mind were big enough to experience thousands of years of evil in a single afternoon. And because He was holy, each sin weighed even more heavily on Him than it would on us who are accustomed to so much evil already.
(Holiness means never becoming DESENSITIZED.)
The crucifixion was an afternoon, but it was suffering so great it may as well be infinite. We will never comprehend it. And Jesus knew death was coming. He chose it. Because He loves you.
“I am laying down My life so I may take it up again. No one takes it from Me, but I lay it down on My own” John 10:17-18.
Jesus knew how badly He was going to suffer. But He chose to do it because He knew the joy that would follow when He rescued YOU!
YOU WERE THE JOY SET BEFORE HIM!
Read John 10.
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[1] In his book, The Jesus I Never Knew, Philip Yancey argues Jesus may have stumbled across His miracle-working powers by bringing a dead bird back to life and other things told only in the apocryphal gospels. Yancey’s view is that Jesus never worked any miracles for Himself or for selfish reasons, but it is possible He discovered His power perhaps inadvertently in moments not recorded in canonical scripture. Clearly, Jesus was comfortable working miracles from the first; He seems to have experience and that might explain why Mary was confident at the wedding at Cana when she said, “Do whatever He tells you” John 2:5. Yancey says that because she was His mother, Mary may have seen His powers; maybe she and her Son had even discussed them. Though we must remember it is not scriptural, I do like Yancey’s argument.
[2] FIRST: Matthew 16:21-23; Mark 8:31-33; Luke 9:21-22. SECOND: Matthew 17:22-23; Mark 9:30-32; Luke 9:43-45. THIRD: Matthew 20:17-19; Mark 10:32-34; Luke 18:31-34.
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