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© 2016 Don Pinson / To Download, right-click here: [Download]

Why did the Roman soldier beneath Jesus’ Cross feel afraid to face God at the Judgement?  He may, just then, have realized the repentant thief had the answer.  “We, indeed, suffer justly,” the thief had said.  That was it:  We were wrong!  Doing things the way we wanted was not right after all!  It was our Creator’s right to tell us—His creation—how to live.  After all, only then would we know how to fulfill His purpose for us.  We were guilty of “insubordination”!  This a soldier could understand.

By now it was noon, and a strange thing began to happen.  The sky began to darken with an eerie blackness.  For a few brief moments, the air was so still it seemed to choke you as the darkness deepened.  Then the earth began to tremble.  Lightning bolts were exploding against the ground.  Then, unexpectedly, the voice of Jesus pierced the darkness.  In a loud, wrenching voice Jesus cried out,

“My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me!”

(Matthew 27:46)

The level of emotional pain expressed by this outcry was incomprehensible.  All who heard it were arrested by its intensity.  They temporarily forgot the present danger to themselves and turned toward Jesus’ cross.  While the light produced by the lightning bolts was short-lived, Continue reading →

Listen to or download this week’s radio program:

© 2016 Don Pinson / To Download, right-click here: [Download]

As the soldier at the foot of the Cross wonders if Jesus really could be God’s Son—wonders if this death could be something more than hundreds of others he’s seen—Jesus suddenly breaks in with another statement.  As He looks down from the cross, He sees His mother standing there beside one of His most devoted followers, whose name is John.  Looking into the eyes of His mother with those amazing eyes of peace, He says, “Woman, behold your son.”  (John 19:26-27) Then looking into the face of the youthful John, He says, “Behold, your mother!”  Thus, He has fulfilled His last earthly obligation.  Being the oldest son in the family, it is His responsibility to see that His mother is cared for in her latter years.   He is dying, thus, He gives her to a trusted friend (and John fulfilled that obligation).  Watching all of this, the soldier is becoming more convinced that Jesus is Who He says He is.  And if He is God’s Son, then that fact demands He be listened to.  If He was God’s Son, then He would be right about everything.  And if there was only one God and He sent His Son to earth to be a man that would prove He cared about us.  If this was true, the Creator was evidently trying to communicate something to us humans.  What could it be?

Quite some time elapsed as the soldier thought about this.  Then a different voice was heard from a cross.  It was one of the men condemned to die alongside Jesus that day.  In a desperate attempt to get loose from the cross, he tries Continue reading →

Listen to or download this week’s radio program:

© 2016 Don Pinson / To Download, right-click here: [Download]

A powerful blow of the mallet forces the spike through Jesus’ crossed feet.  His body contorts and His quivering lips reveal the pain He’s absorbing—yet no sound is heard from His lips save the gasps of quickly taking in air as a reflex to the impact of the nails.  His blood is now running onto the ground at a steady rate—the earth soaking up the blood of its Creator.

Yet in all this word-defying scene of horrendous torture, there is an unmistakable presence of peace surrounding this middle cross.  Though unseen, it is undeniable.  This Man is like no other that has ever hung on a cross.  There is a Presence about Him.  In spite of the cruelty, the ghastly sight of blood, and the stark disregard for human life, dignity pervades this scene!  Something is happening here which defies description.  A transaction is taking place between heaven and earth that will profoundly affect all of history.

Suddenly, as He looks to heaven, Jesus breaks his silence,

“Father, forgive them. They don’t know what they’re doing.”

All eyes quickly turn toward Him.  What did He say? “Father, forgive them?”  Forgive those who had driven nails through His body?  Forgive those who had ripped His flesh with the whip?  Forgive those who were wasting His very life’s blood on the ground!  Forgive them?  Did they really hear Him right?  Yet, the words were unmistakable.  He was asking God to forgive the very ones who were torturing Him. Continue reading →