Sunday, April 3, 2016

Desertion and Second Chances

Firstly, I hope you all had a very Blessed Easter, and enjoyed the great Hope that comes with the Resurrection.

When I looked back at this year's Holy week, one thought kept hounding me over and over again.  

Desertion.  

I kept thinking about how beautiful the first Palm Sunday must have been - with crowds of people making this wonderful gesture with branches to welcome Jesus into Jerusalem.  Yes, Jesus must have had His death weighing on his mind as he rode into the city, but at that moment, there were so many willing to be near Him ... to be with Him.  It must have been so joyous.

That feeling, of course, departed rather quickly on Holy Thursday as I really contemplated what it must have felt like for Our Savior when all of his Apostles scattered during His arrest and torture.  It was clear that Jesus allowed Himself to feel our human emotions while He was with us, and having your friends leave you in your greatest time of need must have hurt on some level.  

Imagine for a minute, if you were being arrested for a crime you didn't commit.  If the police dragged you past your closest friends, asking if anyone could vouch for you, or even knew you.  Imagine watching as those friends ran away ... or worse ... told the police they had no idea who you were.  If we are being honest with ourselves, we'd be in utter shock. And it would hurt.  A lot.  It is almost impossible to imagine no one sticking up for us, right?

In fact, sometimes I wonder what was more painful for Christ, the physical torture or watching his friends leave Him, deny Him, and then ignore everything He told them.  

I've shared with you before that I enjoy watching Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ during Holy Week because it helps me appreciate the physical suffering that Jesus endured for us.  But this year, I couldn't help but focus on this other pain He persevered through.  

I must admit, it upset me to think about that.  

But not nearly as much as when I broke out another kind of torture device ... the mirror.  

Realizing that there have been times in my life where I did not stand by Jesus made my solemn thoughts even worse. 

Luckily, the Prince of Peace gives us all second, third, and millionth chances to make it right and follow Him!
  

God Bless you.

2 comments:

Victor S E Moubarak said...

A good point, Michael ... thank you.

About the disciples ... I guess Christ knew that they would all run away, and deny knowing Him, just like Peter did. At the time, the crowd which arrested Jesus, and the Pharisees, Saducees and all the others were pretty ugly indeed. They had waited a long time for a reason to arrest Jesus and have Him crucified. So ... had any of the disciples stood out for Jesus and defended Him, the chances are they would have been strung up from the nearest tree. So they HADS to run away and deny Jesus. Jesus knew this had to happen, because the disciples were the seeds of the new Church; and now was not the time to destroy the seeds.

About us ... yes, sadly, how often do we deny Christ, and not speak in His defence? What's our excuse?

God bless.

Michael said...

Victor, thanks as always for your comments. You raise a very good point about them running as the seeds of the Church. God Bless you!