May 22, 2015

                                              May 22, 2015

       I always felt indifferent to the person of Christ. I felt that he wouldn't like me very much. I identified with the Pharisees,  whom he was harsh with, but I knew that even they would have shunned me for not fulfilling their requirements. I didn't feel dirty enough to be grouped with the harlots and tax collectors that flocked to him. My sins seemed too small to truly bother about.

         Why did his death matter to me? As the Son of God, didn't he know everything, and by dying for everyone in one fell swoop, wasn't it sort of a package deal, my small bundle of sins just one drop in an enormous bucket of others?        

                                                           

      The pride and hypocrisy  of my own immature thinking makes me reel; professing myself wise,  I was as foolish as everyone I looked down on, and more. Pride insulated me;  it was like a thick, comfortable blanket

between me and everything good and beautiful like humility, compassion, mercy, and righteous judgment. As long as I felt a little bit better than someone else, I thought I was doing okay. And I could always,  always,  find someone to look down on. Someone to despise as a little bit less. 

        It wasn't until some carefully constructed and I thought well-tended walls in my own life fell down that I started to see my own need for redemption. I remember lying in bed, trembling, knowing that what I had on my own wasn't good enough anymore.     God as my Father become real to me, and Jesus as my brother, a man who never sinned against me or anyone,  an innocent, kind man who died to save me.  

      Feeling alone, I tried to picture Christ standing next to me in the memories and flashbacks that pulsated through my mind. I couldn't see Him, and I remember panicking,

my chest heaving with desperate, empty moans. "Where were you? Where were you when this happened?"

Truth came to me, quiet and still;  "I was dying."                        

     This man, who loved sinners, who forgave their sins and selflessly spent himself for others, died in the midst of every sin I've ever committed, and every sin someone else has ever committed against me. His own Father turned His face from his Son, as he died on a cross for me. Eloi, eloi, lama sabachthanei?  My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?

                                                              

          He felt every fear and waking nightmare of shame, and He alone has walked uprightly.     I know that now I  must learn to live the way he died; surrendered to the will of our Father.

Arise, shine;

For your light has come!

And the glory of the Lord is risen upon you.

For behold, the darkness shall cover the earth,

And deep darkness the people;

But the Lord will arise over you,

And His glory will be seen upon you.

Isaiah 60 1-2