Friday: Nailed

A cross worn as a piece of jewelry - a reminder of who we belong to.  Do we wear the cross, or should we be nailed to it?

If we truly believe that Jesus is who he says he is, we need to heed Luke 9:23:  "If any of you wants to be my follower, you must turn from your selfish ways, take up your cross daily, and follow me."

In this day, where we're "blessed" with success, comfort, and possessions, we naturally want peace.  Images of violence are unattractive for most of us and our media tends to filter what we are subject to seeing.  Avoiding images of what Jesus's beating and death were like leads us to think that he wen to his death brave, confident, and as a king.  We know, however, from historical records and from the Bible that he (being fully human) felt our pain.

Jesus suffered a brutal death, and the moments leading up to it were full of anxiety, brutality, and emotional suffering.

First, Jesus was crushed with grief to the point of death (Matthew 26:38) to the point of appearing that he was sweating blood - the stress and worry of what he would go through caused capillaries to rupture.

After his arrest, Jesus was beaten with lead-tipped whips (John 19:1) and his skin was spilt open with other tools of torture, including stick-type whips that split his back open.  He was beaten badly enough that he wasn't recognizable, having his face bloodied and swollen, and the rest of him beaten to the point where he could barely walk.  In fact, another man had to carry the cross with Jesus for a time on the way to Golgotha.

The heading in my Bible "Jesus is placed on the cross" lead me to believe, at first, that he was carefully laid in place, like setting a dinner table when, in fact, he was nailed to the cross with spikes, arms stretched wide, with nothing to support his feet.  He would not be able to stand to take the weight off of his arms to allow him to breathe, yet there was just enough of a step to allow him to suffer, standing only as long as he could bear the pain in his feet and legs, only to collapse and put the weight back on his hands, arms, shoulders, and chest and resume his suffocation.  In fact, when those being crucified didn't die fast enough, according to the soldiers, a mallet was used to break the legs to prevent any "cheating" of standing to breathe.

As Jesus death was upon him, he said, "It is finished" and died.  Not only was his life on earth finished, but our debt of sin was paid.

So here I sit, at my computer, writing down a few thoughts.

Just a few minutes ago, I read several news reports of a recently-discovered prison (or prisons) in Egypt where our Christian brothers and sisters are being beaten, tortured, and killed for their faith.

What's our responsibility then, if we truly believe that Jesus is who he says he is?  Suffered the torture and death he did in order to save us from God's wrath?  Our lives are so short - we have limited time to devote to God and others.  History has an expiration date.

First, we must love the Lord our God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength.  We are to love our neighbors as ourselves.

We must do all we can in our power, through prayerful action, to help our brothers and sisters in Christ.  We have knowledge that they are being tortured and dying.  Now we must act, pressing for human rights upon those who hold others captive for their beliefs.  Our representatives cannot ignore this if we are truly who we say we are as a nation.  We as believers cannot ignore this if we truly believe.

All of us deserve to be nailed to the cross that Jesus was nailed to.  The thing is, he did it so we wouldn't have to.  So that we would be in right standing with God; blameless.

His command is clear: We are to put our own self-actualization aside and love and serve.