By Fenter Northern
“Unto them that look for him shall he appear the second time without sin unto salvation.” ~ Heb. 9:28
Caiaphas and his lackeys were gathered at Golgotha that fateful Friday, all outwardly adorned in their religious gowns. They gloated with each nail driven through the hands and feet of Jesus.
They delighted seeing the sinless Son of God wince and contort in pain as the callous soldiers pinned him to two wooden beams. Those were the exemplary holy men, posing themselves as guides to the blind, showing the way of salvation to the poor and common Jews. In truth they were quite the contrary being only delegates of the devil who had turned God’s house into a den of thieves, now carrying out the will of their prince of darkness. Jesus called this moment, “the hour of darkness.”. He had this moment in mind near Caesarea Philippi when said He would build his church and the gates of hell would not prevail against it. The priests who were killing God’s son that Friday wanted to hurry to get the affair over. They must rush home to celebrate the Passover feast, callously ignorant they had just slain their Messiah, the Lamb of God.
Then they heard the rumor he was not dead; the body was gone in spite of sixteen soldiers posted around the grave–that story would be dangerous; they had to stop it. But the story did not end. Scoffers have said for centuries that was the end of him, but he persists.
As they foolishly plotted to kill the resurrected Lazarus, so always some in every generation crucify Jesus again as a historic fraud, however, He keeps resurrecting himself. The world continually attempts to eliminate him, ye He persists. He haunts unbelievers, He is their worst nightmare. Just as Caliphas paid the guards to lie about the missing body of Jesus, saying: “Tell them His disciples stole the body while you slept, so the world continues its attempts to smother the truth about Jesus. However, underneath the countless energy spent in denying the claims of Christ, the more He remains. As Lady Macbeth could not rid her hands of the “damned spot” of blood on her hand, neither can the world rid themselves of the guilt of killing Jesus. He returns again, and again.
The world will never wipe their hands of their strike against God at Golgotha, where it did despite to the grace of God. Reject it, deny it, curse it, and it is still there. Rome’s iron fist could not make it so, not Nero, Domitian, or Diocletian. Neither could the mocking, snobbish, pagan Greek philosophers like Celsus nor Tacitus do it. Neither could deists like Voltaire, heretical philosophers like Renan, or dedicated atheists as Ralph Ingersoll and Bertrand Russell finish the Alpha and Omega.
It hangs as a halo over the heads of the believers, but an ominous noose around the necks of those who hate him who said, Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away. The words they wish would pass away are written in indelible blood into the history of the world. Silhouetted in every sunrise, emblazoned in every sunset and written upon the hearts of every true disciple of Christ are such words as:
“I will be with you always, even to the end of the earth.”
“Let not your heart be troubled… I go to prepare a place for you that where I am you may be also.”
“Come out and be separate and touch not the unclean thing, and I will be a Father unto you and you shall be my sons and daughters.”
“Unto them that look for him shall he appear the second time without sin unto salvation.”
Amen, so let it be, even so come Lord Jesus