Good Friday1 Peter 4:1-2
We are not a people given to deep reflection. We more attuned to short sound bites, instant messaging, and fleeting images and, through them, to making instant assessments of and passing immediate judgment on the value of things and of people. We may acknowledge the wisdom of “Don’t judge a book by its cover,” but we don't practice it. Life moves too quickly for us to delve into everything that comes our way for a thorough, fair, and balanced assessment. We feel that thinking deeply about things, situations, events, and people is a luxury we can’t afford. Perhaps, but we are impoverished because of it. We routinely overlook precious jewels that enter into our hectic lives. Chief among the treasures that we neglect to engage on a level deep enough for it to enrich our minds and hearts as fully as it can stands the Cross of Jesus Christ.
It’s unlikely that we’d choose to put our busy lives on hold in order to reflect deeply upon the Cross. If forced into contemplation, we’d rather focus on upbeat and heartwarming thoughts such as the birth of Jesus, His astounding miracles, or His insightful teachings. We rightly sense that approaching the Cross in serious meditation is going to challenge us and that it may even affect our lives in ways that trouble us. We can deal with the penetrating teachings of Jesus by sidestepping their thrusts to let them pierce the souls of those we consider more worthy targets. We can marvel at the recorded miracles without thought to how they undergird His greater miracle of birthing us through death to life. We can even soften an incarnate God’s forceful intrusion into our broken world by focusing on the tender feelings we have for baby Jesus sleeping gently in the straw. However, when we stand before the Cross and behold the One pierced by our wretchedness and we begin to take in the immensity of the love that moved Him to bear our sins and endure the punishment that we yet deserve, there is no place for us to hide from the injustice of Him suffering for our sins, no diversion to deflect the ugly truth that Christ hangs in place of us, and no pleasant thought to cushion the cruelty and violence perpetrated against the God of love and mercy who joined us in the human flesh now hanging tattered in crucifixion. Here we must face what is before us and seek to comprehend the breath and length and height and depth of the love that fashioned this unfathomable moment of terror and peace, sorrow and joy, death and life. Here, at the Cross, we must reflect.
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