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The Cross Of Christ

by Anna Wood  
12/02/2008 / Bible Studies


What comes to mind when you think about the death of Jesus on the cross? Do you think about His suffering? His abandonment by His Father? Do you think about the repeated beatings that He received? Do you think about the whipping that He endured? Do you recoil from the nails that pierced His hands and His feet? Do you shutter at His pain? Does the gross injustice of it all make you weep? Do you ache at the love that it took for the perfect, sinless, Son of God to choose to die by the hands of men that He had created? Have you tried to wrap your mind around the amazing decision that He made to leave His Father and His home in heaven and come down to earth for the expressed purpose of dying on the cross for something that He had not done?

For those who love Him, the remembrance of His death is always somewhere deep inside us.... You can't forget--not if you know Him--not if you love Him--you simply can't forget; you can't allow yourself to, not even for one second: for this is the reason that we live. You remember the ringing of the hammersthe pounding of the nailssinless flesh pierced by sinful manthe agony of the wounds too numerous to countthe humiliation of being spat upon, of being blind folded and struck repeatedly while being told to "prophesy, and tell us who it is who is hitting You?" You remember the shame of being stripped of His clothing; of enduring a mock trial designed to convict Him of something that He had not done. You remember His shame as He was mockingly dressed as a King and His tormentors pretended to worship Him; of being drug through the streets the shame, endless shame of being paraded about like a common criminal, instead of being heralded with love as the Son of God.

You never really forget, do you, that God took on the form of manand they beat Himand they mocked Him and they placed a crown of thorns on His brow and forced it down, beat it down, until rivulets of blood ran down His holy face? No, no, you don't forgetthe back-lacerating scourgethe sound of the whip sailing through the air until it contacts with human, and Holy, flesh, ripping it to shredsyou remember the blood, don't you? So much blood too much bloodHis blood mixed with His sweat in the gardenblood running down His face from His pierced browblood dripping, pouring, from wounds to His mouth, His noseblood from the beatingsblood from His whippingthe blood from the nails? Do you think about the heavy chills of shock or His feverish agony from simply enduring too much pain, too much trauma, to His body? Do you remember the darkening bruises, so very, very many of them? Does the thought of His cracked, dehydrated lips and tongue that craved water cause you to shutter? Do you remember the walk through the streets in bare feet, body bent under the weight of a cross much too heavy for Someone Who had endured a night and a morning of intense humiliation and suffering at the hands of so many different men who didn't care Who He was or what they were doing to Him? Do you remember the sounds of the laughter endless, mocking laughterthe Jewsthe High PriestsHerod. the Roman soldierswho thought it was funny that this Man, this Jew, this Carpenter, this stripped, beaten and dying Man, believed Himself to be the King of the Universe?

Do you remember the love that He showed from the cross? Love to His executioners as He pleaded with His Father to forgive them because they were blind, so very, very, blind and they didn't know what it was that they were doing? Do you remember the love that He showed to His mother as He gave her into the hands of His youngest and bravest disciple, John, the only one of His disciples who stayed with Him to the very end? Have you contemplated the love that Jesus showed to the thief on the cross, a man who at the end of a twisted and sinful life looked beyond externals and saw the eternal hanging on the cross next to him and responded to it? A man who started off mocking Jesus as had everyone else but who, in observing how Jesus accepted His pain, didn't fight against His execution, didn't rail against the shame and forgave His enemies, put two and two together and realized that the placard above His head was true, that this really WAS the King of the Jewsthat the accusations that He believed Himself to be the Son of God could only be truebecause He was. Even though Jesus was nailed to the cross just as he was, the thief saw something in Him and he knew that it wasn't over, not yetsomething was coming, something was going to happen to prove Him right. So against all odds and against all logical understanding of events, he placed faith in a Man Who had seemingly been defeated and was dying and Jesus forgave him and accepted him as the first fruits of His Kingdom? Do you remember the love that Jesus showed on the cross to youand to me?

Do you ever remember that He didn't have to die, that He could have called thousands upon thousands of angels to come take Him down and defend Him and they would have been there instantly fighting for their King? Then everyone at the execution, including the soldiers, the High Priests, the other thief, and everyone in Jerusalem at the time, including all of the Jews and weak-willed Pilate, would have known just Who He was and in fear and awe they would have fallen down before Him to worship Him and proclaim Him as the One, as the Son of God, the King of the Jews, as Lord? But, they couldn't have worshipped Him, they wouldn't have been allowed to, not if Jesus had cared for Himself and His own needs instead of for the needs of the ones who were hurting Him, murdering Him. If Jesus had called those angels, they would have come, and the people there and everyone before and since then would have been lost forever because our only hope of salvation would have been shattered. So, Jesus stayed on that crossbound to it not by nails but by love. In enduring everything that He endured, everything that we deserved to endure and that He did not, He proved His love to and for us. What greater love hath a man than he lay down his life for his friends? That's what Jesus did on the cross. We remember that alwaysdon't we? We never, ever forgetnot for a day, not for a moment.Or, is it, that you and I, instead of seldom forgetting, seldom remember?

Anna Wood is a Christian wife, mother of 9 children, homeschooler and writer. Her desire is to know, love, and obey God and bring Him glory and help others to do the same. Her website is called The Apples of Gold and is at http://theapplesofgold.com

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