Hello, friends. My name is Bill Crowder, and I'm glad you can join me for this devotional

reading from Our Daily Bread that I've entitled The Cost.

Michelangelo's works explored many facets of the life of Jesus, yet one of the most

poignant was also one of the most simple. of the life of Jesus, yet one of the most poignant was also

one of the most simple. In the 1540s, he sketched a pieta, a picture of Jesus' mother holding

the body of the dead Christ for his friend Vittoria Colonna. Dunn in chalk, the drawing depicts

Mary looking to the heavens as she cradles her son's still form.

Rising behind Mary, the upright beam of the cross carries these words from Dante's paradise.

There, they don't think of how much blood it costs.

Michelangelo's point was profound.

When we contemplate the death of Jesus, we must consider the price he paid.

The price paid by Christ is captured in his dying declaration, It is finished.

The term for it is finished, Telestai, was used in several ways, to show a bill had been paid, a task finished,

a sacrifice offered, a masterpiece completed. Each of them applies to what Jesus did on our

behalf on the cross. Perhaps that's why the Apostle Paul in Galatian 6 wrote,

May I never boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ,

through which the world has been crucified to me and I to the world.

Jesus' willingness to take our place is the eternal evidence of how much God loves us.

As we contemplate the price he paid,

may we also celebrate his love and give thanks for the cross.

Today's our daily bread devotional scripture reading is from John chapter 19, verses 25 to 30.

Near the cross of Jesus stood his mother, his mother's sister, Mary the wife of Clopis, and Mary Magdalene.

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