17th November 2020.

Series 4 - The Brideprice (Part 2): How much is the Brideprice?
Dear Friends,

How wonderful that we can be chosen to be the Bride of Christ!




It was in the Garden of Gethsemane that the real agony began. For three years our Lord Jesus had known that he was to be the sacrificial Lamb that “takes away the sins of the world.” Gethsemane means olive press. The olives were placed between two huge millstones and squeezed until every drop of oil was extracted. In that garden surrounded by olive trees and sleeping disciples Jesus was pressed beyond measure. He was in mental agony as He faced the ordeal ahead. Not only that, he was greatly afraid; in fact He was so fearful that He sweat great drops of blood. Imagine! Why was He afraid? Let us not forget that though He was fully God He was also fully man. He was about to be MADE SIN. He was to take on your sin, my sin and the sins of billions of others. “He who knew no sin was MADE SIN that we might become the righteousness of God.” The weight of our sin was so fearful that it nearly killed Him. That is why His Father had to send angels to strengthen him. How poignant that his only friends in the garden were the angels.

“He who knew no sin was MADE SIN that we might become the righteousness of God.”

Now strengthened for torture ahead he arose to meet His accusers. It was probably 9pm on the Thursday evening..
Throughout the night He was pushed from pillar to post enduring scoffing, ribaldry, the painful betrayal by Peter and 4 mock trials. By 6am Friday He was before Pilate accused of high treason. Pilate could find no fault in Him but capitulated to the mob. Jesus had already been publicly humiliated; His beard had been pulled out, He was hit on the head, slapped on the face, spat upon, dressed as a King and mocked. His crown was made of thorns some nine inches long, rammed onto His head causing the blood to flow down His face. Now he was stripped naked to be scourged. He was bound to a post and a leather whip with many thongs loaded with lead, spikes and bones was lashed upon His back thirty nine times. All the flesh was torn from His back. This was the ‘intermediate death.’


As He shouldered the cross to ascend to Golgotha He was already dying. Loss of blood and the weight of the cross caused Him to collapse. He had neither eaten nor drunk since the supper with the disciples. On that upward climb He thought of YOU. He thought of me.

“For the joy that was set before him Jesus endured the cross and despised the shame.”What was that joy? THAT JOY WAS YOU AND ME. HE WAS PAYING OUR BRIDE PRICE. For we have not been redeemed with corruptible things like silver or gold….. but with the precious blood of Jesus as of a lamb without spot or blemish. (1Peter 1:18,19) ‘As a lamb led to the slaughter so opened He not his mouth.”

At 9am our Lord was nailed to the cross and by 3pm, the time of the evening sacrifice, He was dead. In the temple below the cross thousands of Passover lambs were being ritually put to death.


SIX DREADFUL HOURS THAT CHANGED THE WORLD

From 12noon to 3pm thick darkness covered Jerusalem. These were the three most distressing hours any individual has ever endured. It was then the Father left, abandoning His Son to His fate. The Holy Spirit withdrew. There was deep silence in heaven. The angels watched in horror. For those three hours Jesus was MADE SIN. God the Father cannot look on sin. He is the thrice-Holy God who ‘dwells in light unapproachable.’ ‘Not only was the earth darkened but Jesus Himself entered into darkness: Body, Soul and Spirit. He cries out in anguish, “My God, My God, why have You forsaken me?”


As the devil and all his demons danced round, Jesus became the ultimate atonement; our Kinsman Redeemer.

Sin is not a pretty sight; it is vile, abominable and it stinks. “I am a worm and no man; a reproach, despised by the people. All who see Me ridicule Me.” On the cross the beauty of Jesus was made ugly by sin. I find it hard to describe how disgusting He became. All I know is that the sight was so ghastly that God had to cover him who was covered in sin, with thick darkness, as He hung alone suspended between heaven and hell.

He died of a ruptured, broken heart.
Can we say that sin killed Him- our sin? The songwriter says, ‘He died my death; He paid my price that I may live.’

The Centurion marvelled that He could die so quickly. Just to make sure he took his lance and plunged it into his victim’s lungs and heart. Out of the corpse flowed blood and water. “Without the shedding of blood there is no remission of sin.”

And that is how the Bride, the church of God, was born.
“Unless a man is born of water and of blood, he cannot enter the Kingdom of God.”

Some four thousand years ago the Lord God caused His son, Adam, to fall into a deep painless sleep. From the side of His sleeping son He took a rib and fashioned it into Ishah, a woman; a helper suitable and commensurate with him; a bride whom he could love and cherish. A bride who would bring him joy. Together they would rule, reign and have dominion. Together they would be fruitful and multiply.

And so from the tortured body of the Second Adam was born a beautiful helper commensurate with her Lord: an earthly bride for a heavenly Bridegroom. The bride is you. The bride is me.

The price? The greatest mental, emotional, physical and spiritual torment that has ever been known.

What a Saviour!

“Greater love has no man than this that a Man lay down His life for His friends.”


Next time: The Bride Price Part 3 - The 7 wounds of Jesus.


THANK YOU
Much love
Mummy Kate.

Revd Mrs. Kate Jinadu is the wife of Revd Paul Jinadu of New Covenant Church.