The Gospel writers didn’t waste much ink on the details of Jesus’ crucifixion. Everyone knew what it implied: an excessively cruel method of torture and execution, used to nip any rebellion against Rome in the bud. Hands and feet fastened to the cross, the victim endured hours of agony, until suffocation or blood loss allowed them to die.  

The Messiah was supposed to deliver Israel from Rome. A crucified Messiah seemed ridiculous. Yet Christians came to realise that Jesus had endured the horror of Golgotha to save people, not from Rome, but their sins. 

The Church of the Holy Sepulchre symbolises what Jesus achieved that day. The original church was built in the fourth century. Destruction and renovation took turns over time, depending on who happened to be in charge of the region. Parts of the present church date back to the Crusaders.

People trade in today’s world. Some trade ideas, others trade favours, and some even trade for a living. What we may not realise is that we’re all traders. We’ve all made a trade that has left our lives in peril and our world out of joint.  

The Bible records right at the beginning how the first people traded life with God for life as their own rulers. This is what sin is. Sin trades the creator for created things. Now if God is the source of all life, light, and love and we trade him away, we lose all of that. 

This is why we need the cross, where Jesus died for the traders: for those in darkness, for those without love and meaning. God commits to the ultimate trade – his son for our guilt – to forgive our sin. Death entered Jesus so life might enter us. 

Once you realise all that God has done through the cross, the only right response is that of the Roman centurion: Truly this man was the Son of God!’

Read on to find out more about the cross of Jesus. 

• Alone, yet not abandoned  Matthew 27.32–54
• Today in Paradise  Luke 23.39–43  
• Mission accomplished  John 19.28–30