For several days I had felt the Lord impress upon me to take communion during our time together. Usually in this I am reading the passage of the breaking of bread, etc. Yet, today something just arose in me. We seem so disconnected at times just going through the motions as we commune with Christ. I held up my little cracker and just began truly remembering…after all….there was much more that happened on the cross than we will ever realize…it was as if He wanted me to walk it out with Him.
………………..and suddenly …………………it was as if I was there watching. I began to retrace His steps in my heart according to His Word. The days before ….the moment of His crucifixion…wondering what He felt and saw. Then when I had received the elements…I had an intimate understanding of why He says..”take up your cross and follow me…” I am particularly fond of the one unknowing soul who happened to be walking by..Simon.
Suddenly, the soldiers compelled him to help Jesus carry His cross. I wonder what was going through his mind. He was just passing through when suddenly he became part of the grandest, yet horrific, moment in all of history. Did He know what a privilege it was to be chosen for such an assignment? Yet…I am sure his heart was in utter torment at what he saw…but we really can’t know can we…at least on this side of Glory. Maybe he exemplifies the true follower of Christ in a way we have not seen before. Covered by the magnificent love of Christ laying down His life..is a little one..an ordinary man just passing through….then suddenly he finds himself picking up the burden of Christ…and walking with Him..literally entering into the fellowship of His sufferings.
A Pondering of Preparation..
The anticipation alone must have been excruciating…
the mere anxiety of the “wait” had to have been overwhelming…thus the sweat turning to blood.
The knowledge and foreseeing of what was to come had to be unimaginable. Maybe the waiting for Judas to align with Satan was more painful than even the rest. For the wounds of the heart are much deeper than that of human flesh.
What made you endure?..as you hugged the whipping post and flesh tore from your bones…what kind of love is this?…
Unrecognizable. …as a man…yet somehow you lifted the cross just enough to start the long leg of your journey…each step must have been as heavy as trying to run in water.
Suddenly, the weight of it all…but for a man just passing through…Lord, am I likened to this man?…Do I help carry your burdens? Surely at times I resist….yet your Spirit compels me as also the soldiers compelled this one..Simon. Knowing you ordain steps…clearly this was not a coincidence…he was chosen before the foundations of the world for this very moment. I wonder did he know this? I wonder if it was like slow motion to you both…
Managing to get to the spot of your coming death…..anguish must have been heard with each nail as it was driven into your hands and feet…
Anguish again surely as the mere weight of gravity pulled at your skin, muscles, and bones as the cross was erected…
The blistering heat and sweat dripping must have stung deeply under the jagged crown of thorns….the softness of your temples so delicate on us humans must have never felt such pain…
Then suddenly a deafening silence…..utter darkness ..and the presence of our Father was gone…ultimate separation from the presence of God. You felt the atmosphere of Hell itself in those moments. …death must have invaded you…. and the will to live?..how could there be any?…yet you knew it was… hope disguised.
Soon..very soon. ..not soon enough… it would be finished..
……but the crowd…every face for whom your pain was felt was mocking you…cheering at the brutality of your suffering…laughing at what seemed your demise…little did they know their very healing hung on that cross…that the future of humanity was in your very blood…life itself…as each drop saturated the ground one by one.
Then for kicks they pierced your sweet side…with no ability for you to stoop over and hold the pain as would be normal…you simply had to endure..
Yet on your lips was love…..did you recall as each face was formed by your own hands? As babes …what care you took in creating them for such purpose…each gave you sheer delight as you numbered the hairs on each head..
The same as the faces now rejecting you….and rejoicing …..at such cruelty. How, Lord, can the heart of men be so cold towards another…
Pontius Pilate …..with self proclaimed cleansed hands…yet as guilty still as the soldiers whose hand wielded the painful blows to your back…for He too chose…
But love ….some kind of supernatural love…a love unfathomable by any human terms…compelled you to take the cup….embrace the cross…silently suffer as all of Heaven waited your call….but love prevailed…and held the nails…the anguish of every sin and sorrow of every human being from generation to generation poured upon you….it’s why you understand us in our valleys…it’s why we can trust you in them… YOU WERE THERE…just as I am watching you and remembering…you were watching us..moment by moment…step by step…tear by tear…and you stayed….you didn’t have to….but you did…until it was finished…
So today, Lord, I honor you as I partake of this bread and what it represents ….your body broken for me…and this juice that pours the life of your blood that was shed for me…and I am amazed by this love….I mean we think that somehow we understand it perhaps…but maybe the truth is…it’s impossible to get my head around…
So today I just remember…and ponder…and thank you for giving your life for me….and in return all I know to do now…. is give my life for you…
and take up my cross….and follow….
November 20, 2015
