On this somber and holy day, as we contemplate the passion of our Savior, I just wanted to share with you all a reading from my Easter devotional, Bread and Wine. The story of the gospel might become too familiar, and my heart can become calloused to it. This short poem moved me:
Beneath Thy Cross, by Christina Rossetti
Am I a stone, and not a sheep,
That I can stand, O Christ, beneath Thy cross,
To number drop by drop Thy blood’s slow loss,
And yet not weep?
Not so those women loved
Who with exceeding grief lamented Thee;
Not so fallen Peter weeping bitterly;
Not so the thief was moved;
Not so the Sun and Moon
Which hid their faces in a starless sky,
A horror of great darkness at broad noon–
I, only I.
Yet give not o’er
But seek Thy sheep, true Shepherd of the flock;
Greater than Moses, turn and look once more
And smite a rock.
Don’t be so eager for Easter that you miss looking at the horror of Good Friday. Stand beneath Christ’s cross and weep and mourn the depth of suffering our Lord was willing to endure for sinners such as you and me.
We don’t like to think about it. It’s uncomfortable to think about blood and spit and nakedness and shame and thirst and slow suffocation. We don’t like to think we might have had something to do with it.
Our greed. Our pride. Our anger. Our lust. Our gluttony. Our stubbornness. Our vanity. It was our sin that held him there.
“Many and grave are those infirmities, many and grave; but wider reaching is your healing power” (St. Augustine).
By His wounds He healed us. He forgave us once and for all. He even defeated death and made a way to Heaven. But before we rush ahead to the healing He accomplished, it behooves us to pause on this day at least and be grieved by His wounds.
“But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was on him, and by his wounds we are healed” (Isaiah 53:5).
Sorrowful and grateful,
