Passion Sunday

The Sunday before Easter is known both as Palm Sunday and as Passion Sunday.  Over the years our worship service on this Sunday at First Baptist tends to move from the joyful triumphal entry to the passion reflected on the cross.  Such was the case in the message I preached today.  I shared a brief bit of prose entitled “Friday” from Calvin Miller’s The Book of Jesus that I have always found haunting. Let me repeat it here, for your further reflections:

On with Friday's grisly business!
Let the broad arm raise the sledge!
Let the hammer ring out upon the nails.
I must not flinch with the crimson flows—
He's only a carpenter—a craftsman who claimed too much.
"I need a black nail, soldier."
Give me your hand, carpenter.  What a strange man you are!  You stretch 
forth your hand too eagerly— too willingly, as though I was going to shake it, 
not nail it to a tree.
Steady, man.  The first stroke of the hammer is easiest for me and 
hardest for you.
For me the first blow meets only the resistance of soft flesh.
The hardwood beneath drives much slower.
For you the first blow is the worse.
It brings the ripping pain and the bright gore.
The wood beneath your wrist does not feel and bleed as you do.

So many depictions of the suffering of Jesus reflect the physical pain of the Savior.  The truth of the matter is that the agony of physical suffering paled in comparison to the internal agony and hell our Lord experienced as He bore the sins of humanity.  I can not comprehend that – all I can do is thank God for this kind of love.

One thing that captures my attention in Calvin Miller’s presentation is the statement of the soldier nailing Jesus to the cross – “Give me your hand, carpenter.  What a strange man you are!  You stretch forth your hand too eagerly – too willingly, as though I was going to shake it, not nail it to a tree.”  Such an image makes me thing of what Jesus said in John 10:17 –“I lay down my life – only to take it up again.  No one takes it from me, but I lay it down on my own accord.”

No one took Jesus’ life from Him – He gave up His life.  He thrust out His hand to be nailed to the cross.  Surely it was His love that held His hands in place.  Strange indeed, when you consider He did this for you and me...