Calvary's imprint!
Soul Snack 9/205 ... Cross vs Crucifix?
At 3pm Jesus uttered his final pain filled cry into all time. An indisposed and disinterested world may have heard but did not reply, lament or bless.
In darkness of His soul, shrouded in the darkness of the day and the absence of His Father, God died. Only the very closest witnessed this death as mid-afternoon was as dark as mid-night.
Bravely and generously Joseph of Arimathea seeks and gains permission to take the body of his abandoned messiah. Now removed from both the world and suffering this disfigured waif is soon entombed.
The cross remained vertical but Jesus was now horizontal. Any subsequent passer-by could no longer witness the suffering nor hear the echos of a despised and rejected heaven ringing in their ears.
An empty cross has become visually a sanitised cross. The witness of suffering now removed, the presence of pain now absent.
Was it five centuries ago that Jesus was taken from the crucifix? The symbol of salvation is now a metaphor of intense satisfaction, as I safely rest in the lounge room upon my unmerited forgiveness.
Yet the imprint of Calvary remains a crucifix! A nailed and bloodied body hanging listless on a fluid drenched instrument of cruel death, reveals true discipleship.
An empty cross is comfortable but a crucifix is the pattern of life!
Now if we are children, then we are heirs—heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory. Roms 8:17
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Thanks to Brennan Manning for this inspiration from "The Signature of Jesus.'