Dare to witness the crucifixion

I get squeamish when I see people get injured. I rarely watch television because so many programs are like a feeding frenzy of this type. The crucifixion is but one more example of how I have shied away from looking too closely. I was too much of a coward to watch the movie, The Passion of the Christ, until it was shown at my church last year at one of the events I never miss, so I watched it. Even so, I feel a certain sense of amnesia about having seen it, something akin to the amnesia I have about an accident I was in once.

One evening during choir practice as the Lenten season approached this year I felt the Holy Spirit calling me to look more closely at the crucifixion. At first it came in what seemed like a verbal prompting for me to “Look at the ground under the cross,” and “Feel the rough wood.” I could handle that much as I tried to imagine the scene, to hear the birds, and to smell the air.

On April 1 I was challenged through a web page to read the book of John, one chapter a day. It was an exciting way to prepare myself to experience anew the crucifixion and resurrection of Christ. It gave me a step by step approach to look more closely.

Our choir sings some exceptionally powerful anthems every year. While practicing a couple of days ago I saw the blood more clearly than before. I saw it fall on the same ground that the Spirit had led me to look at a few weeks earlier. I saw the blood dripping down the rough cross and soaking into the wood. And I realized how that blood must have soaked the royal robe Pilate had commanded the soldiers to put on him after they gave him the lashings which tore up his back.

When we look closely we are better prepared to appreciate the price Jesus paid to bear the punishment for our sin on our behalf. He loved me that much, yet I hadn’t even been born yet. Not only did “this man” Jesus do this for me, this “Son of God” left his throne and riches in Heaven to come down and live as a man, to be born in a stable, to endure the human experiences of being sought out for all the wrong reasons, being loved by some and ridiculed and hated by others, and finally crucified because the chief priests were envious of his popularity among the common people.

Thankfully, we don’t have to keep on looking at the cross. We don’t have to labor there on and on, because Sunday is coming…  When God shows his power for all time!