Lay it Down

Saturday afternoon--day before Easter--a beautiful day in Georgia. I just took this picture. It's a cross beside our driveway my husband and son built a few years ago. We live way back in the woods and have a long gravel driveway. You can't see the cross from the road though sometimes I wish you could.

We were having the women from a local homeless shelter over to eat lunch one Thanksgiving. As I was busy fretting in the kitchen making sure everything was pretty and just so,my husband Rick and my son Thomas (then 14) were constructing the cross. When they finished Rick said, "We wanted the women to feel welcome." Ohhhh, how I remember--me busy worrying about making things perfect as real love was being shown.

Real Love. Authentic Love. Love not done for show but from the heart.

Today I stood at the foot of the cross and thought and prayed. It's been here for maybe four years and I've never done that.

Jesus, thank you. What You did for me covers it all, doesn't it? Forgive me, Lord. Your death covers my sin of worry, my fear, my lack of faith, and when I care more about pleasing others than pleasing You.

I thought about His blood. His pain. His forgiveness. I saw a flash of His agony in my mind, and I imagined the sounds of the crowd. It's not something I think about too often. It's not easy to think about.

One thing I know in my mind and want to understand in my heart--His death was enough. The cross welcomed the homeless women that Thanksgiving. It continues to welcome all of us--from the down-and-out to the up-and-out. Sometimes I choose to hang on to my guilt. But maybe that says to Jesus, "You're blood wasn't enough for me. Maybe for others, but not for my sin."

I think my attitude might be insulting to Him.

I'm laying it down now at the foot of the cross. Forgive me, Lord. Help me to be genuine in my love--more like You.

Julie

'Good' Friday

Good Friday. It isn't called that everywhere. Those in Germany call it Karfreitag, meaning Mourning Friday. Not surprising. God's hand was raised against the darkness of sin that day long ago when Jesus was led to the cross.

It was a grievious day of loss for those who loved their friend and servant-master and did not yet understand this act of love as Immanuel--God in the flesh giving his life for us.

But that's also when it becomes “good” Friday as we realize that torturuous death was love's redemption. We who were created in God's image, created to be in relationship with him, could know the restoration of deep connection and intimacy with him.

I wrote about that day in Scars that Wound, Scars That Heal--A Journey Out of Self-Injury:

Jesus had come to earth to put on human skin to live, breathe, feel, and hurt like you and I do. He had crazy expectations thrown at him. He was spat on, misrepresented, and betrayed—sometimes by those he was closest to.

He then endured humiliation and whippings, a crown of thorns pressed onto his head, a heavy cross placed on his shoulders, and nails hammered into his wrists and feet. So many wounds you couldn’t count them. But each welt, gash, and bruise on Jesus’ body shouts ‘I love you’ and, if accepted, is a gift of freedom and healing.

Only Jesus, as God come to earth, had the power to bear scars that have the ability to reach deep into the hearts of people and heal the hidden pain they feel inside. That’s why another cut or another burn or another punch to the wall isn’t enough. ‘Another’ is never enough. But the wounds Jesus bore are. As he took his last breath on the cross, he said, ‘It is finished' (John 19:30). Wrapped up in those words is the power of his wounds—Jesus' completion of God’s plan to set right each person’s messed-up relationship with him and to make it possible for them to experience the depth of his love.

Scars That Wound, Scars That Heal--A Journey Out of Self-Injury, p. 117

Though you may not self-injure, you may be well acquainted with your own hidden pain. Over the next days, it will be my prayer that you will experience the 'good' of this weekend of celebration, the power of Jesus’ wounds, the depth of his love.

Jan
author of the Live Free series, Standard Publishing

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