09 26 07 Been Pierced Lately?
"And I will pour out on the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem a spirit of grace and supplication. They will look on me, the one they have pierced, and they will mourn for him as one mourns for an only child, and grieve bitterly for him as one grieves for a firstborn son.”
(Zechariah 12:10 NIV)

God promises to Israel what He promises to every one who will accept His words: He will freely give grace to anyone who accepts His gift of the Savior, His Son Jesus Christ. Every sinner (you and me included) had a hand in piercing Him upon that cross, yet God offers the gift of salvation and the Holy Spirit, to convict us of our sin and seek after His forgiveness, through His precious blood. The cross may not mean much to the casual observer, but to the born-again believer, we weep bitterly at the pain we caused our Lord, as one would grieve for the loss of a son.

Piercing hurts! Jesus did not just get a stab below the surface of the skin however. In Hebrew, the word daqar means to pierce through, as the spear went through His side and brought forth blood, bodily fluids, etc. If it sounds gross and painful, it was! And we should mourn over our sin because we did cause Him to go through that and even worse torture by the Roman soldiers.

“And again another Scripture says, ‘They shall look on Him whom they pierced.’"
(John 19:37 NKJV)

To me, it’s good to look upon Him whom I have pierced once in a while, and not just during Holy Week. It keeps me focused on my sin and the holiness of God. It reminds me that without the cross I am nothing. It humbles me to be at the foot of my Savior and I mourn over my sinful heart. Like Paul, I ask, “Why do I do what I don’t want to do? Why can’t I do what I should? How long will this war within me rage on?” But there is grace and His mercy flowing down from the cross to give me strength to get up and keep going.

At the cross……at the cross……down on my knees, there is no higher place to be.

“Look, he is coming with the clouds, and every eye will see him, even those who pierced him; and all the peoples of the earth will mourn because of him. So shall it be! Amen.” (Revelation 1:7 NIV)

But as I look, I can see beyond the cross to the other side of glory, to what Jesus saw as He took the pain, the beatings, and the piercing. I see the glorious One whom we have pierced and even though some will still mourn over their rejection of Him, we can rejoice as we celebrate the great marriage feast of the Lamb and live with Him in heaven one day! All the pain we have caused the Savior, all the mourning, grief, disappointments, and sadness will be turned to joy and celebration.

But today: do we feel the mourning? Do we feel the shame? Do we suffer with our Savior for the sake of His work? Have we allowed the memory and labor of the cross to cut our hearts? Have we BEEN PIERCED LATELY?