11.11 | Above the Clouds
John 19:23-42
‘When Jesus had received the sour wine, he said, “It is finished,” and he bowed his head and gave up his spirit.’
John 19:30
There’s a moment in the third Matrix movie that has always stayed with me.
In case it’s a movie series you’ve never got round to, The Matrix tells the story of a future reality, with humankind defeated and incarcerated by intelligent machines of their own creation. To subdue humanity, their real bodies lie sleeping in watery pods, while their minds are plugged into an artificial, digital world—their entire existence lived as a simulation, experienced only in their minds. The grass they walk on is a digital simulation. The food they eat is a digital simulation. The sun they have seen is nothing but a digital simulation.
In the real world, the sky is scorched with endless dark clouds, meaning that even those who have woken up to the warfare reality of life against the machines, have awoken to a ruined world. Their eyes, too, have never seen the sun.
In this third film, Neo and Trinity—the two lead characters—in a frenetic high-speed chase against the machines, steer their flying ship upwards. And, for a few brief seconds, they pass through the clouds, catching a glimpse, for the first time, of the true, real, beautiful, sun. It’s a moment of unspeakable beauty in a world of chaos. And it captures, maybe more emotively than any other moment in the movies, the magnitude of what humanity had lost.
We find ourselves, today, again at the Cross of Jesus. We’ve journeyed here in the Scriptures multiple times now, in a journey that any of us who have walked the Way of Jesus for any length of time know to be the most regular pilgrimage of our souls. For truly all the Christian life finds it shape and meaning here, with the true God of all emptying His life back upon a ruined world, that the world may again find life. It is the place where our shame is turned to dignity, our debts are turned to inheritance, our slavery to liberty and our defeat to a victory won by our King.
And yet, I always find the crucifixion hard. It’s ugly. It’s brutal. The depth of human corruption—that can meet a man so flooded with love with such violence and vitriol. As I read, the dark clouds of Golgotha can get into my soul.
And yet, as we come to these words, there is also a Matrix moment. For the events of Golgotha certainly feel like a scorched sky, enemies abounding, grief and pain and grotesque hatred so very clear. And yet we also—maybe more clearly than at any other moment we can imagine—transcend the clouds to glimpse unimaginable beauty. For within the scale of the brutality we also are given insight into the true scale of love. For the love of God can be described and demonstrated nowhere more clearly than by what He gave in these moments for the retrieval of our ruined hearts. It is the measure of love that will always seek you out. It is the measure of love that will always contend for your best. It is the measure of love that will give all for your wellbeing and liberty and flourishing and joy in all circumstances, into golden days before you that are unimaginable to the bruised mind.
Come to the Cross of the Lord again today. It is weighty. It is hard. It confronts us with the measure of human brokenness more than any other place.
And yet, as we inhabit the Golgotha reality, we also find ourselves launched above the clouds, to see deeper and further with a sight that only the eyes of the heart can fathom, where we catch a glimpse of the immeasurable beauty of all-giving, all-forgiving, all-transforming
Love.
Reflect:
So greatly He loved you that He did all this.
Rest upon this truth. Ask the Spirit to reveal afresh the Father’s love for you today.
Pray:
Father,
As I come to the Cross,
Often I come wanting to
Explain,
Excuse,
Hide,
Or bargain.
And yet, my Father,
Help me to come today with a greater measure of
Wonder.
For here I find
A God who would reach for me
Into any place,
And at any cost.
And so,
Awaken me,
To greater awareness
Of the unending glory and shining beauty
Of your perfect love.
In Jesus’ Name,
Amen
Old Testament:
For those also reading the Old Testament this year, your additional readings are here:
Ezekiel 23 | Psalm 127