Soul Snack 47/12 ... The Imprint of Calvary

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.

Enveloped in the darkness of His soul and shrouded in the darkness of the day, God died! Only the very closest witnessed His death as mid-afternoon was as black as mid-night.

A brave and generous Joseph of Arimathea sought and gained permission to claim the body of his abandoned Messiah. Now removed from both the world and suffering this disfigured human-refuse was entombed.

The Cross remained vertical but Jesus was now horizontal.  Any subsequent passer-by could no longer witness the suffering nor hear the echoes of a despised and rejected heaven ringing in their ears.

Was it five centuries ago, during The Reformation that Jesus was again taken from the Cross? The empty Crucifix, the symbol of salvation has now become a metaphor of intense satisfaction, as Christians safely recline, asleep on a lounge room named unmerited forgiveness.

Today an empty crucifix remains a visually sanitised cross; the witness of suffering now removed and the presence of pain now absent.

Yet the imprint of Calvary must remain a crucifix!  A nailed and bloodied body hanging listless on a timber built, fluid-drenched instrument of cruel death has revealed 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)

(Thanks to Brennan Manning for this inspiration from The Signature of Jesus, Pub. Multnomah Books USA 1996)

Today's Soul Snippet:

"As Christians living in the spirit we are called to pass on the tenderness of God." ~ Brennan Manning