Days
of Labor
America recently celebrated Labor Day. This might be a good time to
remember and reflect upon the greatest labor ever performed on planet
earth. That would be the work of the God-Man, Jesus of Nazareth, to
make possible the salvation of sinners.
Up until age thirty, he LABORED in
virtual anonymity as a carpenter, the son of a carpenter, increasing in
wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and man (Luke 2:52).
Following his baptism, he LABORED under brutal wilderness conditions
during forty days of fasting as he gave the devil a sound defeat over
temptation.
For three years he traversed the
Promised Land with his band of twelve, LABORING to glorify his Father,
train these twelve men, to heal the infirmed and to expose the
hypocrisy of the religious elites.
You can see him in the Garden of
Gethsemane, LABORING as he sweat drops of blood in anticipation of
bearing the brunt of his Father’s wrath against him for our sins, and
becoming sin for us who knew no sin (2 Corinthians 5:21).
You can see him during his unlawful
trial, LABORING under the crown of thorns that impaled his scalp, the
spittle, the plucking of his beard, the open-handed blows to the face
and the Roman whips carving furrows in his back.
See him LABORING under pure
exhaustion as he carried his own cross, the Roman instrument of death,
toward the hill of Golgotha, only to have a substitute finish the job
for him. For six hours he endured excruciating LABOR nailed to
the Cross, three of those hours in total darkness, as the Lord laid on
him the iniquity of us all (Isaiah 53:6). When he cried out, “It is
finished!” it signified his redemptive WORK was
complete.
The completion of his redemptive WORK
marked the commencement of his rescue WORK. After his resurrection, he
descended into Abraham’s bosom, and led OT believers who had been
sequestered into the glories of heaven, his precious blood having paved
the way. Now seated at the right hand of the Father, he is engaged in
mediatory and intercessory WORK on behalf of believers, NEVER
needing a rest break.
Unlike our computer systems that
‘crash’ when demand for data exceeds the capacity of servers to deliver
it, our Mediator is aware of every thought, every need, every petition
and every care, NEVER needing to hit the ‘pause’ button to get ‘caught
up’ with the multiple billions of issues that reach the throne every
second of every day!
So what does all this LABOR on the
part of Jesus mean to us? The apostle Paul summed it up this way:
“Therefore, my beloved brethren, be ye stedfast, unmoveable, always
abounding in the WORK of the Lord, forasmuch as ye know that your
LABOUR is not in vain in the Lord” (1 Corinthians 15:58).
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