Two thousand years plus haven't diminished the reality of the rugged
old cross. The Lord Jesus really struggled under the weight of it up
Golgotha's hill and then willingly lay down upon it so spikes could
rip and tear His flesh as He was nailed to it. The blood ran rich and
red and terribly real. Thorns pierced that noble brow. Excruciating
pain closed those loving compassionate eyes. The pulse convulsed
wildly as that old tree was dropped into the hole and stood upright
so the whole world could witness Satan at his worst. And the lips
trembled as He whispered, "Father, forgive them; they know not
what they do." Oh, how terribly, sadly real was that pure
sacrifice given for the sins of the whole world! A death as ugly and
cruel as sin itself described hundreds of year before by the Prophet
Isaiah, "...visage so marred more than any man...no form nor
comeliness and no beauty that we should desire him. He was despised
and rejected of men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. We
hid our faces from Him and esteemed Him not. Surely He has borne our
griefs and carried our sorrows, but we thought Him stricken and
smitten of God and afflicted. But He was wounded for our
transgressions, bruised for our iniquities, with His stripes we are
healed. But it pleased the Lord to bruise Him and grieve Him, to make
His soul an offering for sin, to justify many. He poured out His soul
unto death and was numbered with the transgressors; He bore the sin
of all and made intercession for sinners." (Paraphrase of Isaiah
52:14 through Isaiah 53:12)
Make no mistake: this was not merely the appeasement of Divine
whimsy. This sacrificial death of purity on a common wooden cross
bridged the awful sin chasm between man and his Creator. It was the
culmination of God's plan of grace that had been in place since
Creation. It was singularly the most important event of all time in
all the earth.
The cross was real, and we become partakers of His flesh and blood
when we remember it that way. If we allow time to gloss over it,
clean it up and make it less painful to remember, we are doing a
disservice to the Lord's death and to our memorial celebration of it.
The horror of His sacrificial death enhances the beauty and efficacy
of His glorious resurrection. We must participate with Him in the
passion, agony and pain of the cross if we would share with Him the
victory and triumph of the resurrection. The crucifixion of the Son
of God was not just an event in history; it was THE EVENT of all
time. Its significance to us is daily and eternal. Aline Edson