How Great a Passion!

I had so many thoughts and feelings to ponder after first viewing the movie The Passion of the Christ. It was such a vivid and dramatic portrayal of the real events, most all agreed. 

What struck me was how our imaginations can’t possibly understand the realities of our Savior’s trial, suffering, and death. There are times when our insight needs help! And the story through visual form serves as a strong instrument for the Church.

What is recorded on the printed page – a story with which we have become so familiar – is often read with very little devotional reflection or meaningful understanding, simply because it is so familiar. We almost become immune to familiar stories of scripture represented in our Easter and Christmas celebrations, breezing through them because of our common acquaintance with them. But to be sure, crucifixion was a hideous torture. The Romans had intentionally made it that way in order to control any threat against their authority.

But the deeper impression to me was the great price endured by Jesus, the Christ! The way of the cross was such a brutal path. Obedience to God was so distressing. To say the least, the cross was inconvenient to Jesus!

And then I think about my own discipleship, and His invitation to me: If any want to become My followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow Me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for My sake will find it. (Matthew 16:24-25)

Has the way of the cross ever been inconvenient or troublesome for me – or for you?

A song heard long-ago has captured my quiet time this season. Titled He Loved Me With a Cross, God’s love is more precious now for I know now what it means: He Loved Me With a Cross!

He knew from the beginning
the price He’d have to pay
For my heart had gone so far beyond
what other loves forgave.

I wasn’t on that hillside
to see Him on that tree
But as my guilt was placed upon Him
I know that somehow
He saw me.

He loved me with a cross!
He loved me with a cross!
In answer to the call of love,
He loved me with a cross!

Though I could not imagine
what loving me would cost
Jesus went to Calvary
and loved me with a cross!

And I would be a sinner
still enslaved by all my sin
If it had not been for Jesus
and the way He loved me then.

He loved me with a cross!
He loved me with a cross!
In answer to the call of love,
He loved me with a cross!

— by Joel Lindsey, Sue C. Smith