I ate breakfast with my friend, Nathan, this morning at the Marlborough. John served us both sausage and two on brown, over easy. I'm becoming a regular - I don't even have to say my order anymore.
As we ate, we were discussing the cross, and something Nathan's said really made me sit up and pay attention. He said that 50 years after Christ was crucified, people went to be crucified in the name of Christ praising God. Just read Foxe's book of Martyrs or other historical accounts. Nathan continued, so why did Christ struggle so much with going to the cross, when mere followers of His went with joy to this form of death, happy in the knowledge they would share in the suffering and death of their Lord?
Did Christ just have a low pain threshold?
Why did Christ say, in Matthew 26:28, "My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death"? Why did He struggle so much with the cup that His Father had given Him to drink? Why did He plead with God to take away this cup from Him (Matthew 26:42)? Sure, crucifixion was a brutal death, but thousands of other people experienced this form of torture...and Jesus was God! Did He just have a low pain threshold, or perhaps He was just having a bad day...
A physical manifestation
Or was there something more to it than that? Nathan said to me that it wasn't the physical suffering on the cross that Christ was sorrowing to the point of death over. The cross was just the physical manifestation of the suffering occurring in the spiritual realm at that time. Whatever was happening to Jesus physically (the nails through His wrists and ankles, the crown of thorns rammed on His head, the spitting and mocking, the scourging, the beating) was nothing compared to what was going on in the spiritual realm. You've seen the Passion of the Christ? Great movie, but even if what was shown in that R-rated movie was accurate, it pales in comparison to the suffering of Christ's soul. I'm not a fan of creating a false division between the spiritual and the physical (which was a Greek construct), but for this it serves my purpose.
The cross was the easy part
As we were talking I wondered whether it was something like baptism - the physical act of submersion beneath, and rising from, water is symbolic of a far greater truth of death to self and rising again to new life in Christ. Nathan and I agreed that this metaphor falls short - the cross wasn't just symbolic; as previously mentioned Christ's physical torture was the physical manifestation of the spiritual suffering. It was the visible tip of the entire iceberg of pain that Christ was enduring. As I glibly titled this blog: the (physical) cross was the easy part.
Nails through hands means something to me
What we're dealing with here transcends human comprehension. We don't know what it is like to be a perfect, whole and holy God in three persons, and then to have one of those Persons abandoned by one of the other Persons ("My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me?") So we need the physical suffering of Christ to gain some purchase to begin understanding the spiritual world of pain He was enduring. Nails through hands means something to me. The eternal Trinity temporarily divided is so big it risks becoming meaningless.
Bending our imagination
But dare we limit our gratitude to the physical suffering of Christ? If we were allowed a glimpse of the holy Christ becoming sin for us, our worship would surely exponentially increase. If we bent our mind-power, spirit and imagination to the task of grappling with the spiritual suffering of Christ, where would this journey take us?
The danger of thinking little thoughts of a big God
I know one thing for sure, my God is so big, that I can't risk thinking just little thoughts of Him. I want to start thinking BIG thoughts of God. I might not like where it takes me...it may make me uncomfortable, but is my God worth any less? One hymn writers has already begun the journey:
We may not know, we cannot tell
What pains He had to bear
But we believe it was for us
He hung and suffered there...
(Cecil F Alexander)
As we ate, we were discussing the cross, and something Nathan's said really made me sit up and pay attention. He said that 50 years after Christ was crucified, people went to be crucified in the name of Christ praising God. Just read Foxe's book of Martyrs or other historical accounts. Nathan continued, so why did Christ struggle so much with going to the cross, when mere followers of His went with joy to this form of death, happy in the knowledge they would share in the suffering and death of their Lord?
Did Christ just have a low pain threshold?
Why did Christ say, in Matthew 26:28, "My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death"? Why did He struggle so much with the cup that His Father had given Him to drink? Why did He plead with God to take away this cup from Him (Matthew 26:42)? Sure, crucifixion was a brutal death, but thousands of other people experienced this form of torture...and Jesus was God! Did He just have a low pain threshold, or perhaps He was just having a bad day...
A physical manifestation
Or was there something more to it than that? Nathan said to me that it wasn't the physical suffering on the cross that Christ was sorrowing to the point of death over. The cross was just the physical manifestation of the suffering occurring in the spiritual realm at that time. Whatever was happening to Jesus physically (the nails through His wrists and ankles, the crown of thorns rammed on His head, the spitting and mocking, the scourging, the beating) was nothing compared to what was going on in the spiritual realm. You've seen the Passion of the Christ? Great movie, but even if what was shown in that R-rated movie was accurate, it pales in comparison to the suffering of Christ's soul. I'm not a fan of creating a false division between the spiritual and the physical (which was a Greek construct), but for this it serves my purpose.
The cross was the easy part
As we were talking I wondered whether it was something like baptism - the physical act of submersion beneath, and rising from, water is symbolic of a far greater truth of death to self and rising again to new life in Christ. Nathan and I agreed that this metaphor falls short - the cross wasn't just symbolic; as previously mentioned Christ's physical torture was the physical manifestation of the spiritual suffering. It was the visible tip of the entire iceberg of pain that Christ was enduring. As I glibly titled this blog: the (physical) cross was the easy part.
Nails through hands means something to me
What we're dealing with here transcends human comprehension. We don't know what it is like to be a perfect, whole and holy God in three persons, and then to have one of those Persons abandoned by one of the other Persons ("My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me?") So we need the physical suffering of Christ to gain some purchase to begin understanding the spiritual world of pain He was enduring. Nails through hands means something to me. The eternal Trinity temporarily divided is so big it risks becoming meaningless.
Bending our imagination
But dare we limit our gratitude to the physical suffering of Christ? If we were allowed a glimpse of the holy Christ becoming sin for us, our worship would surely exponentially increase. If we bent our mind-power, spirit and imagination to the task of grappling with the spiritual suffering of Christ, where would this journey take us?
The danger of thinking little thoughts of a big God
I know one thing for sure, my God is so big, that I can't risk thinking just little thoughts of Him. I want to start thinking BIG thoughts of God. I might not like where it takes me...it may make me uncomfortable, but is my God worth any less? One hymn writers has already begun the journey:
We may not know, we cannot tell
What pains He had to bear
But we believe it was for us
He hung and suffered there...
(Cecil F Alexander)