Go with me in your mind to the Hill...three Crosses...and three Victims (two thieves and then there was the One). Take a look at it...at them. How do you see it? Clean; like the paintings of the event portray? Manicured? Silent? Not a peep; just a sad respect? Well-staged; three crosses stationed equal distance apart with the men hanging in some sort of rather sterile and graphicless coordination?
Yes, I say that basically the perception in our Modern Age mind is somewhat presentable. The rough edges seem to have been sanded. We do still recall this scene at least every Sunday. In doing so we offer God, and certainly Jesus, a moment's gratitude for pulling off the world's greatest upset.
If I wouldn't be offensive, may I ask you to rethink this famous scene which is just a stone's throw from downtown Jerusalem? Might we do away with the sanitation that resides in our minds as to how crisp and well-presented this event is assumed to be?
The landscape was cluttered with citizens; some scrambling, others wailing, while soldiers strong-armed the crowds by pushing, by shoving. The panic must have been backed by a momentary senseless loss of bearings. What is happening? Rumors are flying! Occasional screams from the whips' piercings indeed alarm the innocent in the crowd! And where are the little kids? Who's got the kids? Find them!
Has Jerusalem gone nuts?!?!?
Yes, note how we've, at least mentally, cleaned up this tragedy just a tad. We've added gloss to the printed artwork which has been handed down through the ages. The ruggedness has been smoothed over via the centuries.
But....but peer now into Las Vegas. Take a look...a good look...at the brutality. Hear the screaming, feel the sickness in heart, and the inability on the part of thousands to grasp what has happened. Take inventory of this train wreck; this absurd event of humanity gone awry. See. Hear. Feel.
And as we do what we can to absorb the Nevada massacre, might we take a bit of the numbness, a bit of the ugliness, a bit of the disbelief of it all and gain a bit of insight as to the stark reality of Jesus stranded upon his cross for all to observe? Might the sickening feeling of human disaster be realigned at the scene of the Cross as well?
The Cross wasn't a photo shoot for the Palestinian Gazette nor the American Journal. It was a terrible scene of destruction. Moreover, it was a picture of mankind gone bad; at its ultimate worst. It wasn't slick in finish. Neither was is smooth in communication. It was rugged and then more rugged and then even more rugged as the torturous screams surely echoed across public square and down dark alleys.
May the awful news of today cause an appreciation for the awful news of Jesus' day to be restored. If it could be, we might find even greater consolation that we will survive this national disaster just as we did the eternal one on that famous Hill.
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