Reflex

I thought about the cross today. It's something that I try to do often, because it reminds me of the foundation on which my faith stands, and keeps my crazy life in perspective. But today, I thought about the nature of the man who hung on that cross, and how amazing it is. This makes me think about my own nature, more specifically the way that I respond to pain.

In high school, we'd always play this game of trying to make each other flinch. I always lost. When someone's hand is flying at my face, I'm not really one to take chances. Translation: I'm a scaredy-cat. I don't like pain. Even more so, my brain doesn't like pain either; it does everything within it's power to prevent my body from harming itself. When I'm dead tired, my body forces me into sleep; when anything moves close to my face, I blink; when I burn my hand in a flame, I jerk my hand away. My body's peripheral nervous system responds to pain before I can even think. It is not in my nature to willingly bear hurt; as a matter of fact, I do everything I can, physically, emotionally, and spiritually, to avoid it.

So why didn't my GOD, who took on the full form and nature of man in the person of Jesus Christ do the same? Why didn't he call down legions of angels with flaming swords to smite all those whose hardened hearts had condemned him to the cross? If he spoke the world into being, couldn't he have spoke and un-made it? He could've struck them all blind, called down a plague, forced everyone to bow down, turned the world upside-down: he could've done anything. I imagine that he blinked as the hammer fell on those nails again and again; I imagine how those nails burned like fire as they pierced his flesh. His whole being screamed out for another way, a way out of the hurt and the shame.

But he didn't. He died with a crown of thorns on his head, embracing death because he knew it meant life for us. For me. He cried out from the cross, but he never got off it. He flinched, but he never wavered. His hands and feet burned with pain so that he might heap burning coals on the heads of the whole world with this question: What love is this? How could Christ, in the nature of man, restrain his power and cover his divine splendor with earthly rags to bear the pain and suffering of a whole world?

The answer is this: love. The love which has made us new, and the love which now burns brightly, deep down in each of our hearts; a fire that the world cannot explain. Thank you, Jesus: thank you for your revolutionary love.

Jesus replied, "Friend, do what you came for." Then the men stepped forward, seized Jesus and arrested him. With that, one of Jesus' companions reached for his sword, drew it out and struck the servant of the high priest, cutting off his ear. "Put your sword back in its place," Jesus said to him, "for all who draw the sword will die by the sword. Do you think I cannot call on my Father, and he will at once put at my disposal more than twelve legions of angels? But how then would the Scriptures be fulfilled that say it must happen in this way?" (Matthew 26:50-54)

For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. (John 3:16)

"If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink. In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head." Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good. (Romans 12:20-21)