Friday, October 18, 2013

Bi-millennial Saline Sea of Salty Tears

Now that's a title! :)

I'm in the process of reading several books about Grace. It's an interesting, and
obviously very critical, concept. 

There is a quote in one of the books, and I am paraphrasing here, that suggests
that there is a natural danger of forgetting or undervaluing the suffering that
our savior, Jesus, bore both at the cross and in the hours prior to, because of the
fact that it has been almost two thousand years since that day at Golgotha/ Calvary.
The fear expressed is that those events can be looking upon without the emotional
attachment as almost factual, devoid of feeling.

I have never watched "The Passion of the Christ," depicting the twelve hours
leading up to the moments of the death of Christ simply because I'm not sure I could
handle what I would be seeing. Despite the fact that I know a lot more, now, about
those events than I did when the film debuted, I still feel horrified about what
took place. 

It's not only the pain, humiliation, loneliness...I could go on...that Jesus suffered,
it's the fact of who He was. His acceptance of sinners and outcasts, his empathy
for the many afflicted ones that came into contact with Him, His unyielding
devotion to His Father and his obvious love for the ones who would benefit from
what He had to go through, all make the image of this God/man hanging on a tree
so very difficult for my heart to endure. To be physically and emotionally
saddled with the sins of all men, to be separated from the one he loved so much,
to be deserted by those He taught and chose certainly are conceptually difficult
to accept.

If all of this still, after almost two thousand years, does not bring a tear to one's
heart and to one's eye, there probably is a serious disconnect in the understanding of
the gift of Grace that we are privileged to have received. Guilt...probably not a wise
 or intended emotion. Appreciation..there we go! Give that a captial A! Every moment,
every day appreciation for undeserved pain and suffering. No wonder we love
Jesus Christ with all of our hearts! Praise Him!


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