True Love Lead To The Cross

Christ saved us.

That's a blessed miracle in and of itself. There's so many ways to look at what he accomplished, so many things we can learn and take from it. At the moment, I am thinking of one in particular, one that shows the consistency of his message to us.

Christ allowed this to happen to Himself for us.

Now, put yourself in his position. Your captors punished you, forced a crown of thorns on top of your head, the pricks deep enough to draw blood to trickle droplets down your face and through your hair. You're being beaten, whipped, spit at, jeered, humiliated and ridiculed. Your friends are hiding and watching from a distance. You know why you're doing it and you understand that it's the only way to accomplish the reason for your assuming life as man.

Christ never fought back.

You hung on a cross between two thieves who argue. One mocks you, the other asks for you to remember him. One lacked faith and the other became filled with it.

Christ forgave.

He told the prisoner with faith that he would have a place in Heaven. He asked his Father to forgive those who did this, for they knew not what they were doing.

At no point in this story did Christ resist. He gave himself up willingly and accepted more pain and agony than the human body and mind could stand without an iron strength of will and desire.

Finally – and here's what strikes me – at any point in time during all of this, he could have stopped it. He could have crushed all those against him and took over the world. After all, wasn't he God?

So why didn't he?

Love.