Imagine this!
The private sins of every man, thrust upon the frail body of one very peculiar, mischaracterized outcast. He is the exoneration of doomed generations, completed in a single act, performed in the boldness of high definition, thundering in surround sound to the deafness of profound apathy. His sin-laden, sensitive, raw nerve endings exposed to excruciating, pinpoint pain, void of the protection of skin covering, he bled profusely and publicly while the seemingly, more important matters of everyday life bustled in muted ignorance. His exposed dermis tissue pressed against needling abrasive surfaces, drenched in acidic toxicity, twisting and tearing flesh indiscriminately, He agonized to the sensitivity of His own involuntary body movements and the gentle forces of the passing breeze against the exposed lesions of our indiscretions. The rhythmic pummeling forces of constant beating reverberated through His divided concentration, yet He somehow maintained the ability to focus on a posture of constant intercession in our behalf, despite the million points of simultaneous, grueling pain He endured. The weight of His exhausted body separating the tender flesh and bone of His delicate feet and hands in a slow, painful, skin-stretching slide against the jagged edges of rusty spikes. Broken bones and stab wounds inducing short, shallow, convulsing breaths to intensify the pain of even the slightest shift in position, His physical pain multiplied by the weight and strain of the sin He carried. Then, wave after wave of God’s forgiveness and sensitivity cut through generations of secret sin, unrepentant sin and future sin to the core of His purity to bludgeon Him, in brutalizing anguish, with the stains of our imperfections. His perfect life subjected to the open scrutiny of corrupt judges and the vilest cast of unworthy characters for the sake of the cowardly, the foolish, the arrogant: me. He painfully withheld the omnipotence of His authority, considering the mere possibility that even, if only one of us turned toward Him, He would continue in the slow agony of innocent sacrifice.
Picture this!
In return, we continue in arrogance as we symbolically take part in an extension of the crucifixion; spitting in His face, plunging our swords into His side and offering Him the pungent vinegar of doubt and persistent cynicism about the truth of His life and the significance of His story. In the irony of our own hypocrisy we stand boldly on the insecurity of fables, prosecuting the literacy of His truth; often refusing even, to hear (or read of) His case. Expertly tailoring our disbelief to fit the language of our own misunderstanding, we challenge holiness with believable hearsay and inferior intellect, or we ignorantly choose to believe in the frailty of our feelings. Then, in the treachery of fearful times we tremble as we look desperately for miracles we never previously believed in. Instinctively we offer Him our luke warm, wavering, anemic commitment in expectation of an immediate response.
Conceptualize this!
He rejoices in our behalf, stretches forth His hand to us again, understanding the fickle nature of our ability to be truthful, to give or to sustain commitment and He commits Himself to us in a gesture of unmerited favor for the sake of our humility and He meets us right where we are.
Is that a miracle?
“When I consider Your heavens, the work of Your fingers,
The moon and the stars, which You have ordained,
What is man that You are mindful of him,
And the son of man that You visit him?
For You have made him a little lower than the angels,
And You have crowned him with glory and honor.
You have made him to have dominion over the works of Your hands;
You have put all things under his feet,” Psalm 8:3-6 (NKJV)
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