The Lord Jesus was crucified on Golgotha with two criminals. This fulfilled Isaiah’s prophecy that the Messiah would be numbered with the transgressors (Isaiah 53:12). The Lord Jesus was treated as if He were the greatest criminal: He was nailed to the wood in front of the others and His cross was placed in the middle.

After His resurrection, we see the Lord again taking a place in the center. But now it is with His gathered disciples, whom He greets with a “Peace to you” (John 20:19, 16).

Even today, we can still experience His personal – if not bodily – presence in our gatherings; for where two or three are gathered in His name, He is in the midst (Mt 18:20).

In eternity, He will also be the center of His own. As a prophet, the apostle John saw “in the midst of the throne and of the four living creatures, and in the midst of the elders, stood a Lamb as though it had been slain” (Rev 5:6).

Men gave the Lord the place in the center to show that they considered Him worthy of the greatest punishment and shame. We believers, on the other hand, love to see Him take the place in our midst, because all authority and honor belong to Him and He is the object of our eternal worship.