For God loved the world in this way: He gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life.
For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.    John 3:16-17 CSB

Jesus spoke those words to Nicodemus, who came under the cover of night so as not to be seen. On the day that Jesus fufilled the words of John 3:16, Nicodemus left the shadows and went to the cross in broard daylight to help to take the body of Jesus off of the cross and place it lovingly in the tomb. That day the life of Nicodemus was transformed in a way that he could never have anticipated.

In the cross, God accomplished something we are incapable of doing, freeing us from the grip, grime and grief of sin. A loving gift , graciously given, freely pouring mercy's healing life into anyone who will accept and surrender to the love of Christ Jesus.

In that sense we can only kneel at the foot of the cross and cry out to Jesus with empty hands, knowing we can add nothing to what He has done. But that doesn't mean there is nothing that Jesus wants from us. Quite the opposite, Jesus asks for the one thing we have to give, our will, our love, our every living breath.

The cross invites us to complete transformation, as the apostle Paul says in his letter to the Galatian church…

I have been crucified with Christ, and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.      Galatians 2:20  CSB

Paul further explains in his book known as Romans

For we know that our old self, was crucified with him so that the body ruled by sin might be rendered powerless so that we may no longer be enslaved to sin, since a person who has died is freed from sin. Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him, because we know that Christ, having been raised from the dead, will not die again. Death no longer rules over him.  For the death he died, he died to sin once for all time; but the life he lives, he lives to God. So, you too consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.      Romans 6:6-11  CSB

The cross invites us to leave our selfish strivings, and be transformed into a new creation, actively participating in God's work of reconciliation and restoration.

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has passed away, and see, the new has come!  Everything is from God, who has reconciled us to himself through Christ and has given us the ministry of reconciliation.  That is, in Christ, God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and he has committed the message of reconciliation to us.

Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, since God is making his appeal through us. We plead on Christ’s behalf, “Be reconciled to God.”  He made the one who did not know sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.   
2 Corinthians 5:17-21  CSB

The cross calls out to all who will listen, inviting all to join Jesus in laying down our lives in order to receive a new imperishable, undefiled and unfading life.

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Because of his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead and into an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you.
1 Peter 1:3-4  CSB

As we approach another Easter season, will you move beyond being a bystander, watching the spectacle from the shadows, and instead like Nicodemus, choose to join Jesus at the cross?

Then Jesus said to his disciples, “If anyone wants to follow after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life because of me will find it.   Matthew 16:24-25  CSB