LifeLink Devotions for Wednesday, April 2, 2025

When our grandchildren were small, Denise and I would take one of them every Tuesday afternoon for grandparent’s day. We played games, did projects, had fun, and ate supper together. We still try to do that now but on a different scale because of their age. I remember one particular Tuesday which was  Liam day.

We finished painting the birdhouse we had been building and then decorated Easter eggs.  After a Swedish pancake supper, we sat down to play a game of attack Uno. After winning the first game, grandpa was already at Uno in the second game after playing his next to last card. Liam, whose hand was loaded with cards, was next to play. A slight smile started in the corner of his mouth as he reached for a card. The smile grew as he laid it on the discard pile. He spoke with excited enthusiasm and said, “I trade hands with grandpa!”

One thing you must know about Liam is that he has never been able to contain his excitement and enthusiasm. It spews out of him resulting in a smile that captures his face and energy expressed in uncontrollable jumping.

After trading hands with me, his energy level started rising. He had just played a trade hands card and now only had one card in his hand while I sat there sorting through 20 of them. On the next turn around the table he played that last card and won the game. He laughed. He jumped. He showed off his contagious smile. His enthusiasm was abundant as he repeated the same phrase over and over again. “I did it! I did it!”

That memory reminds me of how I should respond whenever I hear the Gospel. It’s not a perfect analogy of what happened on the cross, but it will suffice for my heart for a while. Hanging on the cross, Jesus traded hands with us. I had a losing hand which guaranteed my eternal defeat. Jesus had the winning hand. In the game, I would never have initiated the trade, but Jesus did. He took my losing hand as His own and gave me a winning hand I didn’t deserve. My trade with Liam was forced upon me, but Jesus traded willingly. He did it!

As I thought about that trade, I was reminded of its cost from the prophetic twenty-second Psalm. It describes the horror of Christ’s crucifixion. Then at the end we read this.

Psalm 22:27-31 ²⁷ All the ends of the earth shall remember and turn to the LORD, and all the families of the nations shall worship before you. ²⁸ For kingship belongs to the LORD, and he rules over the nations. ²⁹ All the prosperous of the earth eat and worship; before him shall bow all who go down to the dust, even the one who could not keep himself alive. ³⁰ Posterity shall serve him; it shall be told of the Lord to the coming generation; ³¹ they shall come and proclaim his righteousness to a people yet unborn, that he has done it.

Here’s how Isaiah says it in Isaiah 44:22-23.  ”I have blotted out your transgressions like a cloud and your sins like mist; return to me, for I have redeemed you. Sing, O heavens, for the LORD has done it.”

Shout it. Jump around. Laugh with unspeakable joy. Jesus did it!  Jesus did it!

Pastor John