We always reflect on the death of Christ at this season of the year. Movies have been made about that pivotal point in mankind’s history. A lot of focus, and rightly so, has been put upon the gruesome beating and resulting disfigurement that finally ended Christ’s physical life. Isaiah said this of it. “Just as many were astonished at you, so His visage was marred more than any man, and His form more than the sons of men;” (Isaiah 52:14). Christ’s broken body is symbolized in the unleavened bread that baptized members partake of at Passover time. So, His dying in our place is incredibly important!
There is another aspect surrounding His death, however, that adds considerably to what He endured and to how we go forward through the Days of Unleavened Bread and through the rest of the year as well. Coupled with the beating He took on our behalf is the mocking that Christ, the very Son of God, was reviled with. The Apostle Matthew records, “When they had twisted a crown of thorns, they put it on His head, and a reed in His right hand. And they bowed the knee before Him and mocked Him, saying, ‘Hail, King of the Jews!’” (Matthew 27:29). The soldiers who did this would be archetypes of any one us in our pre-conversion days. They were contemptuous in their complete absence of esteem for God’s Son. They mocked Him by bowing before Him sarcastically. Saying, “Hail, King of the Jews!” was their haughty and sarcastic way of saying, “You, the supposed Son of God, are nothing.” The Spring Holy Days remind us of these things.
One of our main focuses during the Days of Unleavened Bread and throughout our lives is to do the opposite of mocking Christ. We now know that He is the very Son of our Father and that there is no other name under heaven among men by which we must be saved. We know we are to glorify God in our body and in our spirit, which are His through Christ’s sacrifice for each of us personally. So, for us to not zealously put out the leaven of sin and also consume Christ’s very mind is to mock Christ, it is to say sarcastically, in effect, “Hail, King of the Jews” while bowing before Him in pretense only.
The Apostle Peter explains very well our present opportunity to truly honor, and not mock, both our Father and Christ. “But you are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, His own special people, that you may proclaim the praises of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light; who once were not a people but are now the people of God, who had not obtained mercy but now have obtained mercy. Beloved, I beg you as sojourners and pilgrims, abstain from fleshly lusts which war against the soul, having your conduct honorable among the Gentiles, that when they speak against you as evildoers, they may, by your good works which they observe, glorify God in the day of visitation.” (I Peter 2:9-12). Allowing Christ to live in us presently in both thought and action is how we honor His name and family lineage. It is also a major means by which the gospel can be preached to presently unsuspecting minds.
Marshall Stiver
