The greatest pain of the cross was the pain of sin. Jesus didn’t deserve to feel the shame, but he felt it. He didn’t deserve the humiliation, but he experienced it. He had never sinned, yet was treated like a sinner. He became sin. All the guilt, remorse, and embarrassment– Jesus understands it.
Atonement
Author Unknown
It is not for us now to rush ahead to Easter. Rather, it is necessary for us once again to undertake the surrender to Jesus of all of our false expectations and selfish hopes. It is necessary for us to watch as our sin burdens him and bears down on his head like a crown of thorns. It is necessary for us to see him die as the Lamb of God who absorbs the sin of the world and bears it away. It is necessary for us to suffer patiently the dark night of sorrow and death, if we are to enter the brilliant new light of Easter and receive the eternal life offered to us in the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ.