More Than Meets The Eye

Sometimes to see the true value of something, we have to look beyond the surface. A perfect example of this can be found during a visit to the US Mint. Let’s pretend you live in Costa Rica (we can dream can’t we?!). You speak no English, but decide to visit America during your vacation. Now look at the coins above and tell me their monetary value, READY GO!!!! Oh, what’s that? You can see a mountain man with a bow tie, two girlie men with braids and bows in their hair, a torch, an olive tree, an eagle, and two architecturally symmetrical buildings and they don’t clearly inform you of the coin value? Hmm, that’s kind of odd. Well it turns out US coins are one of the only monetary units in the world that don’t have the numerical value on the coins. (Go ahead, take a second to scrounge around in your pockets to confirm this. No I didn't photoshop the pics). Now just because the coins don’t numerically show $.01, $.05, $0.1, and $.25 that doesn’t make the coins worthless, does it? Of course not. You, as a Costa Rican, can easily find out the value by simply asking someone to read/translate the English on the coins. Bueno.

Sometimes to see the true value of something, we have to look beyond the surface. Today, I wanted to examine one of the most significant events in all of history and see if there really is any value beyond our initial impressions. I’m talking about Jesus dying on the cross. Sure, on the surface, it really doesn’t seem significant at all. After all, it was very common for people (mainly criminals) to be crucified on a cross. In fact, there were 2 other people that were crucified at the same time as Jesus…. So who cares, right? Well actually, there is more to it, and it involves asking someone from that time. Although we can’t time travel and ask someone from the time of Jesus we can still get the insight we need from the Bible. Let’s look at two facts and see why they are valuable:


So now we know that animal sacrifices were necessary for a person to experience forgiveness of sins. The innocent, blemish-free animal died in place of the sinner. This only temporarily forgave sins, and thus had to be offered over and over (Hebrews 10:4). You guys, this was foreshadowing and illustrating what Jesus was going to do. Jesus was the ultimate end-all-be all sacrificial substitute. His death on the cross was a sufficient payment to forgive all our sins---past, present, and future. We were separated from God because of our sin, and deserved death, but Christ took on our punishment so that we may have a restored relationship with God and experience eternal life.

“Look, the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!” (John 1:29)

"God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God." (2 Corinthians 5:21)

"Unlike the other high priests, he does not need to offer sacrifices day after day, first for his own sins, and then for the sins of the people. He sacrificed for their sins once for all when he offered himself." (Hebrews 7:27)

I’ll leave ya’ll with a quote from the pastor of a church I went to in North Carolina “Rather than being never-satisfied, Jesus accepts you fully, as you are. The Messiah’s salvation was not that if you could be good enough for long enough then He would save you. Jesus’ salvation was an announcement of His acceptance of us based on the work He would do for us: He would live the life we were supposed to live and die the death we had deserved to die, in our place, so that if we would just accept it we would be immediately and fully forgiven and accepted. “ – J.D. Greear.