For the six weeks of the church season of Lent, as well as for “Holy Week” (the week before Easter), I will attempt to explore how fully invested the Lord Jesus was in regard to securing our salvation.  The penalty for our sin was no small thing, and it exacted a huge toll on him.  Yet he was determined to be our holy Substitute. 

Each week I’ll share some thoughts on yet another part of Jesus’ body which he committed to the cause.  These posts will form the basis of our Wednesday evening worship discussions.  I pray they provide wonderful food for thought, and blessed encouragement to all of us!

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Did Jesus think of you, see your face, and love you personally as he died for you?

Of course, we won’t know until we get to heaven where we will “know fully, even as [we are] fully known” (1 Cor. 13:12).  But even this passage gives us a peek into our Lord’s mind and knowledge. We are “fully known” by the Lord.

Our Savior understands us completely.  He is acutely aware of our strengths and our talents, our faults and our flaws, our personalities, our preferences, our appearance and our entire lineage.  Even with the billions of people in the world today, Jesus knows us in our entirety!  (Just as he knows the other 8 billion fully!  What a concept!  What a God!)

David describes our Lord’s all-encompassing knowledge in Psalm 139:

“You have searched me, LORD, and you know me.  You know when I sit and when I rise; you perceive my thoughts from afar.  You discern my going out and my lying down; you are familiar with all my ways.  Before a word is on my tongue you, LORD, know it completely.”

“Your eyes saw my unformed body; all the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.  How precious to me are your thoughts, God!  How vast is the sum of them!”  (Psalm 139:1-4, 16-17).

Yes, we are indeed “fully known” by the Lord!

Furthermore, the Lord says, ‘“Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart’ to be my own” (Jeremiah 1:4-5).  This statement was spoken to the prophet Jeremiah, yet it holds true for every single Christian.  In fact, even more astonishing, the Lord set us apart to be his children before the creation of the world! (Eph. 1:3-8). 

Before time began, our God was already fully invested in us.  Through the millennia, the Lord remained committed to us and to winning our salvation.  All of history was directed by our God to bring this to fruition!  Consequently, we can confidently conclude that there was never a time when the Lord was NOT thinking of us!

Which brings us back to the opening question: what crossed Jesus’ mind while he hung on the cross?  Did we personally flash through his perceptions?

His agony was extreme.  It’s hard to imagine being aware of much of anything beyond the pain.  But then, we’re referring to the mind of the Son of God here.  We can’t begin to understand him, much less comprehend his thoughts.

For example, as true God praying earnestly in the garden, he knew exactly what awaited him, and as true Man he cringed at the horrors of it.  At that moment, Jesus was engaged in an anguished, bloody-sweat-producing prayer (Lk. 22:44) to his Heavenly Father, begging him to find another way to save sinners.  His dual nature (God and Man) wrestled between the necessity, and the brutality, of his approaching torture and death.

Yet shortly before his prayers that the Father remove the cup of suffering from him (Mk. 14:36), Jesus prayed his beautiful “High Priestly Prayer” (John 17).  After praying that he himself would be glorified and bring glory to God as he completed his saving work, Jesus prayed for his personal disciples’ spiritual welfare and work. 

And then he launched into a prayer for you and me and all believers throughout history.

These words, perhaps more than any other Scripture, show us the mind and heart of Jesus as he was approaching his crucifixion.  Listen to his comments, flowing straight from his loving concerns for you and me:

“My prayer is not for [the disciples] alone.  I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you.  May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me.”

“I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one — I in them and you in me — so that they may be brought to complete unity.  Then the world will know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.” 

“Father, I want those you have given me to be with me where I am, and to see my glory, the glory you have given me because you loved me before the creation of the world.”

“Righteous Father, though the world does not know you, I know you, and they know that you have sent me.  I have made you known to them, and will continue to make you known in order that the love you have for me may be in them and that I myself may be in them” (John 17:20-26).

Did Jesus’ mind contemplate you and me personally on his excruciating cross?  Perhaps.  We can’t know now.  But here is something we can be certain about: Jesus loved us completely at that moment.  (As he always has!)  Which means we were definitely on his mind as he undertook his redeeming task.

The book of Hebrews provides this fascinating insight: “For the joy set before him [Jesus] endured the cross, scorning its shame” (Hebrews 12:2).  Which is another way of saying that Jesus on the cross was eagerly anticipating the exultation of seeing our salvation secured when he was finally able to announce that “It is finished!” (John 19:30). 

All of which demonstrates that Jesus’ mind was fully invested in bringing us God’s full forgiveness.  How incredible our Savior!  How wonderful his salvation!