Who stands with you and for you?

God made Him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God (2 Corinthians 5:21).

Rolf Hochhuth wrote a play about the Holocaust called The Deputy. In this play, set during World War II, a young priest discovers the truth about the Jewish extermination camps. He makes it his personal mission to put a stop to the government’s orders to slowly exterminate an entire people. He appeals to everyone in authority, finally even to the pope in Rome, but all turn a deaf ear to him or offer up excuses that relieve them from any responsibility. When he has finally exhausted every avenue of protest open to him, the hero of the play sews the identifying mark of a six-pointed star on his sleeve; he then presents himself at an extermination camp, where he enters the ovens to die with the people whose cause he has adopted as his own.

When Jesus was baptized by John in the Jordan River, He identified Himself with sinners. Like the hero of Hochhuth’s play, He committed Himself to standing with us in our darkest hour. Jesus accepted the punishment coming to us for our sins; He submitted to the death coming to us for rebelling against God’s authority. But Jesus was not like the hero of the play in an important way; Jesus suffered in our place to spare us from suffering, He went into death so that all sinners could have life and have it more abundantly. The hero of the play suffered and died with those he loved; Jesus suffered and died in the place of those He loves. Please join me in praying,

Lord Jesus, we thank You for coming to our world to stand with us in our troubles. You were tempted to be selfish and angry and lazy just like we are, but You never sinned. You lived a perfect life to show us how wonderful life can be. But we thank You most of all for standing before us as our guardian and our shield. Your heavenly Father’s anger blazed against us for our evils, but You stood between us and the Father; You took all of His anger directed at us upon Yourself. For our sakes You suffered and died, so that we might be forgiven and live. We can never thank You enough, Lord Jesus; we can only ask You to keep on forgiving us and help us to keep to Your ways while we live on this sinful earth, which Satan has made into a miserable concentration camp. Come soon, Lord, to free us forever. Amen.