John 6:65-66 NLT
Then He said, "That is why I said that people can't come to Me unless the Father gives them to Me." [66] At this point many of His disciples turned away and deserted Him.
Luke 22:47-48 NLT
But even as Jesus said this, a crowd approached, led by Judas, one of the twelve disciples. Judas walked over to Jesus to greet him with a kiss. [48] But Jesus said, "Judas, would you betray the Son of Man with a kiss?"
Mark 15:33-34 NLT
At noon, darkness fell across the whole land until three o'clock. [34] Then at three o'clock Jesus called out with a loud voice, "Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani?" which means "My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?"
The decline of support for Jesus as He approached The Cross is staggering.
When His teaching became inexplicable - "John 6:53 NLT
unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you cannot have eternal life within you." - casual hangers on fell away!
Those who would happily eat the "prosperity bread" with the 5,000, won't stay the course when the going gets rough.
John 6:60 NLT
Many of his disciples said, "This is very hard to understand. How can anyone accept it?"
How hurt was Jesus to see the people He'd healed and helped, just walk away and reject Him?
The dagger of betrayal stabbed even deeper into His tender soul when Judas chose a kiss to betray Him.
From the text, the weakened, distressed Jesus was amazed at Judas' callous action: "Are you using a kiss to betray Me?"
Yet the most grievous, darkest point of Jesus' Passion came on the Cross.
After enduring unspeakable torture and cruelty, they pinned Him to the rough wood by thick nails through His hands and feet.
His exposed, bleeding body suffered the degradation of vicious taunts from the onlookers.
Then it got dark, darker for Him than it had ever been... Since forever, back before there was even any time, He had always had the Presence of The Father with Him.
Suddenly, He felt the fosaken, lostness of all humanity resting on Him. The full weight of the sin that beats guilt into each of us, was on Him - The Father had to turn His gaze away!
Jesus felt forsaken by God and cried out the eternal: "Why!"
Yes, He knew it was coming, but when it actually happened, it was an emotional shock to His humanity.
Thankfully that's only half of the story. Now we know that He rose again, gloriously victorious over sin and death.
But in our own desertions, betayals, and forsakenness, we have Someone Who's walked that path - Our Eternal Great High Priest- Jesus.
Hallelujah - what a Saviour!
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