I hope you enjoy these beautiful reflections on Christ from Abigail Dodds, the author of (A)Typical Woman: Free, Whole, and Called in Christ and a regular contributor to Desiring God.

The name Jesus comes from the transliteration of the Greek IESOUS (pronounced ee-ay-soos; there is no J in Greek) from the Hebrew name Yeshua, which means “Yahweh saves.” No matter how it is spelled or pronounced—whether Yeshua, Yēsū, Jesus, or something else—we are told that His name is above all names, and that one day every knee in the universe will bow to Him.

When I really love a book, I tend to either read it quickly or slowly. In the case of Dane Ortlund’s excellent Gentle and Lowly: The Heart of Christ for Sinners and Sufferers, I have been reading it very slowly. I find I’ve underlined most sentences on a number of pages! Here’s one of many small portions of the book I have appreciated.

As you read these quotes from God’s Word and His people about the importance of Christ’s resurrection (excerpted from my book It’s All About Jesus) may your heart overflow with gratitude to Jesus.

This Easter weekend, may we celebrate the magnificent, cosmos-shaking victory of Christ’s physical resurrection, a real event that changed everything! 

As you contemplate these words of Jesus He spoke while on the cross, and also the reflections from Christ-followers on His words, thank God for His willingness, in those three hours of unfathomable darkness, to make the ultimate sacrifice to purchase our place with Him forever.

At the beginning of this Passion Week, it’s fitting that we turn our eyes to the cross. No tragedy could be greater than God’s blameless Son being slaughtered without mercy in horrid crucifixion.

The Cross was no afterthought. God planned it from before the world’s beginning and foretold it centuries in advance. While we have no choice but to suffer in this life, Jesus did have a choice and elected to suffer for our sins so we don’t have to in eternity. Words cannot capture the shocking nature of Christ’s redemptive work.

Human logic says the King of kings should have been born in a palace, surrounded by luxury. Instead, the only door open to the humble Savior was a dirty stable. Amazingly, and revealingly, this was all by God’s design.