Monday, December 22, 2008

Flipping through my CD collection, I notice that my most beloved albums are the ones that draw me to the Cross. I’ve found that it helps me stay focused when the soundtrack of my day is centered on the Word. But the temptation here is to lean too much on the experience the music can bring, and replace real joy in the Gospel with a foot-tappin’ enjoyment of the song. This isn’t true appreciation of the Cross.

It’s not that I believe emotions are wrong. The Bible is filled with God’s commands for us to be emotional: “Rejoice,” “take heart,” and “hope.” Nevertheless, soaring ecstasy is not necessarily a sign of devoutness. In fact, I’m learning that the more comfortable I feel, the less I’m probably focused on Christ. Real adoration starts with me feeling uncomfortable.

Try to envision the scene with me:

They were large, strong hands. In infanthood they had been complete with tiny, exquisite fingernails; now they were grown, calloused and wrinkled by work. A carpenter’s hands.

Another hand, a fist, came down harshly upon the carpenter’s face. Another set of hands grabbed the carpenter’s wrists, jerking them behind his back, binding them with ropes that scratched and tore at his skin. Then all was a mixture of blood and sweat as the beating began.

After only minutes under the torture of the Roman guards, the carpenter began to lose all sign of humanity. Was this really a man who once stood to teach thousands of people for hours on end? Those arms that now hung limp, had they really once carried little children? Could that nose possibly have been part of a face at one time?

Staggering forward, his hands grasped a plank of wood. He did not need a cue. The carpenter knew exactly what he was to do; but the soldier prodded him with a whip anyway. Onward he stumbled, blinded by the blood running down his face.

The carpenter was forced onto the ground. He did not fight back. His wrists were grabbed by a Roman guard and pressed firmly against the plank. (I wonder if the soldier paid attention, could he have noticed something in this prisoner was different? Did he not realize those hands were familiar? That before the soldier was a soldier, even before he was a man, those same strong hands had formed his own? That the wrist he now held with an iron grip was the wrist of his Creator? How could he not recognize God’s Son?) The guard positioned a spike. Mallet in hand, he swung hard.

Every ounce of the carpenter’s being pulled upon those spikes. His cells were a frenzy of suffering and pain. As Joni Eareckson Tada tried to describe the scene, “God was on display in His underwear, and He could scarcely breathe.”

Sometimes when we draw near enough to the Cross, our words are depleted. Our wells of vocabulary run dry as we approach the end of human comprehension.

It’s not comfortable. It’s not always pleasant. For me, the revisiting usually ends with conviction, sorrow, and immense guilt. Those were my beatings, my nails, my bruises that He felt instead. I’m enabled by this reminder to truly worship—to realize God’s justice and grace and mercy and really, honestly adore Him. From there, I can start rejoicing in His love, which is He wanted for me in the first place.

Originally posted 3/21/08.