Mark explained on Sunday that “kindness is relating to sinners with hearty good-will.” Nowhere, he told us, do we see what kindness is like than in Jesus Christ’s death on the Cross. He read this excerpt from When God Weeps, by Joni Eareckson Tada and Steve Estes:

The Savior was now thrown to men quite different from the eleven. The face that Moses had begged to see–was forbidden to see–was slapped bloody (Exodus 33:19-20). The thorns that God had sent to curse the earth’s rebellion now twisted around his own brow. His back, buttocks, and the rear of his legs felt the whip–soon they looked like the plowed Judean fields outside the city. “On with the blindfold!” someone shouts. “That’s it–now spin him. Who hit you? Heh, heh.” By the time the spitting is through, more saliva is on him than in him. No longer can he be recognized. “Cut him down from the post. Send him toting his crossbar to the playground.” Up Skull Hill to the welcome of other poorly paid legionnaires enjoying themselves.

“On your back with you!” One raises a mallet to sink in the spike. But the soldier’s heart must continue pumping as he readies the prisoner’s wrist. Someone must sustain the soldier’s life minute by minute, for no man has this power on his own. Who supplies breath to his lungs? Who gives energy to his cells? Who holds his molecules together? Only by the Son do “all things hold together” (Colossians 1:17). The victim wills that the soldier live on–he grants the warrior’s continued existence. The man swings.

As the man swings, the Son recalls how he and the Father first designed the medial nerve of the human forearm–the sensations it would be capable of. The design proves flawless–the nerve performs exquisitely. “Up you go!” They lift the cross. God is on display in his underwear, and can scarcely breathe. (pp. 52-53)

Categories: five15 blog