Today's Devotion

Monday, June 22, 2026 - John 19:23-42

In the name of + Jesus. Amen.

“Was crucified, died, and was buried” is the summary from the Apostles’ Creed that covers these very verses from St. John’s Gospel, which we believe in our hearts and confess with our mouths (Rom 10:9). These three events are each important for the church’s proclamation of the Good News. Each event leads to the next, just as each line in the Creed concerning “Jesus Christ, [the Father’s] only Son, our Lord” flows logically in time and in purpose, one to the next.

Jesus, the Word, “became flesh” (John 1:14) in order to be born. He was born in order that He might “[dwell] among us” (John 1:14). He dwelt among us so that He might be offered on the altar of the cross: “the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!” (John 1:29). For His life and death apart from His incarnation and cross would just be one more man among many living and dying. But Jesus dies as the spotless Lamb (1 Pet 1:19), and His death fulfills the prophetic Scriptures. For the cross of Jesus is where our Lord proclaims the victory of the accomplishment of the Atonement: the payment for the sin of the world: “It is finished.”

His crucifixion leads to His death. His sacrifice is complete. He is the substitute. God has provided (Gen 22:14). The “blood and water” bear witness to the completion of the offering of the Atonement. He truly died. The water and the blood join with the Spirit in bearing witness to the fulfillment of the sacrifice (1 John 5-7-8).

But unlike the bodies of other crucified men, the body of Jesus will awaken on “the third day” hence. Our Lord’s death happened on the sixth day of the week, the same day as the creation of man (Gen 1:27, 31). And in the course of this re-creation, God will again rest on the seventh day, the Sabbath – this time in the tomb. So as the sabbath approached, the body of the sacrificed and slain Jesus was brought to His resting place “in the garden” where there was “a new tomb in which no one had yet been laid.” And “they laid Jesus there.”

And as John testifies, we believe and confess that our Lord “was crucified, died, and was buried.” These three events flow from one to another, in time and in purpose. And while the tomb is seen by the devil, the world, and our sinful flesh as a “final resting place,” it is nothing of the sort for Jesus – and subsequently for all who trust in His promise, who believe His Word, who are transformed by the water and the blood, those who believe in their hearts and confess with their mouths that “Jesus is Lord” (Rom 10:9). And St. John’s Gospel will also provide the Good News that follows!

Amen.

In the name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.