For all who have ever been falsely accused, know that you are not alone. Lies, misunderstandings, loneliness, frustration, and anxiety...there was a man who experienced all of this before you, and that man was God. He was mocked. He was beaten. He was put to death...murdered. He felt isolated as He cried out, "My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?" (Matt 27:46). When darkness was all around Him, when sin pressed in on Him, He took it all upon Himself as a sacrifice to save us.
An innocent man, our One true God, died as a guilty man. The world did not know Him; they did not know the truth. How humble He is that He would allow His people to believe He was a blasphemer! They told Him, "We are not stoning you for a good work but for blasphemy. You, a man, are making yourself God" (John 10:33). Completely misunderstood, Jesus loved those who reviled Him and put Him to death, saying, "Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing" (Luke 23:24). In His Mercy, God chooses to love us. He does not need to, but He does anyway. There is something so valuable that He sees in us. He desires to be wholly united to us, despite our sinfulness.
As we witness Jesus' sacrificial love this Lent, let us remember that it was not just the people 2000 years ago who put Jesus to death and falsely accused him. How many times have we, too, misunderstood God? How many times have we thought that He was a certain way when later we found that we were wrong, that perhaps He is more merciful than we thought? Maybe we thought that it was His fault when something bad happened in our lives, but really it was not; it was just a consequence of our own sin. We, then, have falsely accused Him. Every sin that we have ever committed was born on that cross. He took our sin upon Himself, taking on the appearance of our own guilt. It was only because of our sin that He died for us. We were the ones who put Him to death.
With this in mind, we must have an attitude of mercy toward those who falsely accuse us, for we have done the same thing, except we have done this to God. If God, the Creator of all the universe, had mercy on human beings for falsely accusing Him, then it only seems appropriate that we, mere human beings, should have mercy on other human beings, with whom we share the guilt of putting our same Creator to death because of our sins. Recognizing that Jesus took the guilt of others upon Himself as a sacrifice, we, too, have the beautiful opportunity to do the same. In bearing the pain of false accusations, we can offer up our own sufferings, united to the redemption which Christ gained for us on the cross, as a sacrifice for the very souls of those who have accused us. Thus, we shall walk ever more closely in the footsteps of our Savior on the Way of the Cross.
We must never forget the love our Savior has for us. His message from the cross is not of condemnation! It is, in fact, the exact opposite–a message of redemption, mercy, and love that lays "down one's life for one's friends" (John 15:13).
