In her book The God Who Hung on the Cross, journalist Ellen Vaughn retells a gripping story of how the Gospel came to a small village in Cambodia. In September 1999 Pastor Tuy Seng (not his real name) traveled to Kampong Thom Province in northern Cambodia. Throughout that isolated area, most villagers had cast their lot with Buddhism or spiritism. Christianity was virtually unheard of. But much to Seng’s surprise, when he arrived in one small, rural village the people warmly embraced him and his message about Jesus. When he asked the villagers about their openness to the gospel, an old woman shuffled forward, bowed, and grasped Seng’s hands as she said, “We have been waiting for you for twenty years.” And then she told him the story of the mysterious God who had hung on the cross.
In the 1970s the Khmer Rouge, the brutal, Communist-led regime, took over Cambodia, destroying everything in its path. When the soldiers finally descended on this rural, northern village in 1979, they immediately rounded up the villagers and forced them to start digging their own graves. After the villagers had finished digging, they prepared themselves to die. Some screamed to Buddha, others screamed to demon spirits or to their ancestors. One of the women started to cry for help based on a childhood memory — a story her mother told her about a God who had hung on a cross. The woman prayed to that unknown God on a cross. Surely, if this God had known suffering, he would have compassion on their plight. Suddenly, her solitary cry became one great wail as the entire village started praying to the God who had suffered and hung on a cross. As they continued facing their own graves, the wailing slowly turned to a quiet crying. Then there was an eerie silence in the muggy jungle air. Slowly, as they dared to turn around and face their captors, they discovered the soldiers were gone. As the old woman finished telling this story, she told Pastor Seng that ever since that humid day from 20 years ago the villagers had been waiting, waiting for someone to come and share the rest of the story about the God who had hung on a cross.
Throughout our Lenten Season we told the story of the “God who hung on the cross” and on Easter Sunday put an exclamation point on the story. If we were to tell the ‘rest of the story’ to these Cambodia folks we would say: Basically Jesus lived the life we should live but could not. We rebel; He submitted. We sin; He obeyed. Then Jesus as our Hero and rescuer made a trade. He took His perfect life and traded it for our rotten lives. He gets our badness and the judgement and punishment that goes with it. We get His goodness. It’s been called the “Great Exchange”. As a Christian, it’s the best deal we’ve ever made. It was a deal that makes us right with God and worthy of His heaven. Then on Resurrection Sunday, the story was sealed as true. In Jesus rising from the dead, we have the assurance that Jesus is who He said He was – God in Flesh – and did what He would do – Substitute His life for ours.
Pastor Mark
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