At Ease.

Hebrews 12:2, Philippians 2:1-1, John 18

At 7:00PM on October 16th, a French teacher by the name of Samuel Paty was beheaded by an 18-year-old Russian Muslim refugee.

Allegedly, Paty, asked Muslim students to leave his class, before he showed them cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad during a class on free speech.

Turns out the allegations were fabricated and it never happened.

If you show insulting pictures of Muhammed, you get your head cut off, yet in western civilization, you can call Jesus Christ a racist (See here).

This should do nothing but set Christians at ease; because it does nothing but substantiate the validity of our worldview: Our lowly King, “who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God” ( Hebrews 12:2). The Kingdom of God is so backward, and the one who knew this the most was Christ Himself. Nothing was going to keep Him from the cross. Muhammed (and his followers) reject ridicule. Jesus had no issues being mocked, while he was being nailed to a cross,  because it is there that He shows Himself to be the Son of God; not in His resistance to being ridiculed and mocked, but his embrace of it as the means by which God’s glory and righteousness is redeemed and eternal hope is offered to vile sinners (Philippians 2:1-11). Humble and lowly is He. It is on account of Christ’s humility in the crucifixion that God exalts Him to the highest place. For Jesus, the ridicule which He suffered was part and parcel of His devotion to His father’s plan. Jesus, who, “when he was reviled, he did not revile in return; when he suffered, he did not threaten, but continued entrusting himself to him who judges justly” (1 Peter 2:23. Jesus shows that He trusted Yahweh by his humble submission to the ridicule of the cross.

It was Jesus’s hand who stayed Peter’s sword, as a mob came to falsely arrest Him….lead by one of the disciples which He himself picked (John 18). After telling Peter to put His Sword away, he says to him, “Shall I not drink the cup that the Father has given me?”.

The shame and ridicule which Jesus suffers is played out under His complete control. It is Jesus who hand selected His betrayer. Here, we see the absolute submission and loving obedience of the eternal Son. He calls the one who will sign his death It was orchestrated in eternity past within the joy of the trinity.

The open shame of His false arrest, the kangaroo-court of a trial (where the world was really on trial before the true King and Judge), the merciless beating and whipping and his ultimate crucifixion on the cross was in order to uphold the righteous name and glory of God and therefore secure the salvation of God’s enemies (that is us).

We Christians ought to feel at ease because of the lowliness and humility of our crucified savior, Jesus Christ. We should see the one who left nothing on the table and drank the wrath that our sins deserved, down to the very dregs.

Our Godward insults have received retributive, divine justice in the brutalized and murdered body of Christ.

Thank God for Jesus.