I have this picture in my mind of Jesus on a cross, near to the point of succumbing to death. He is beaten and bruised. He is bloodied, with fresh, as well as hours old dried blood. He is alive and yet so near to death.
In my mental picture, I am standing behind him, as he breaths some of his last, pain-filled breaths. I am dirty with the shame, the guilt, the sin that is part and parcel of being fully human. I am marred, scarred and unattractive. None of the dirt and the shame and the guilt and the sin is visible to anyone … except for me. It is internal. I look to others normal, clean and attractive, but, in my heart … that is where the reality of my condition is visible.
Then Jesus turns his face to look at me behind him. I know that He can see the real me … one who is so unworthy so close to one who is so perfect. He looks at me, and a tear falls from his bruised eye. He can see the sin in my life, and the embarrassment I feel causes a lump to form in my throat. I bow my head in shame, and tears fall from my internally bruised eyes.
I sob, more for myself than for the man suffering on the cross. I now feel the guilt of turning my face away from him, in HIS final hour. “How selfish,” I say to myself.
I force my head to lift, I force my eyes to look up to him.
He sees my guilt-filled eyes, he sees my sins … ALL OF THEM. I muster all that is within me to not look away.
Then, he does something that changes my life … forever.
He moves his head, how I do not know, for it was taking such efforts for him to even breath. He positions his head so that he is now looking at me through the cross, not around it. It is as though the wooden cross has become translucent, so that he is looking at me through the cross.
What he sees, as he looks at me through the cross is very different from what I know I am. He sees me as clean, He sees me as spotless, He sees me as beautiful.
Through the cross, Jesus sees me as the perfect creation that I was always intended to be. But, it is only through His seeing me through His cross that I am made new.
“So, Jesus sees you, and he’s like, my son, my daughter, perfect, spotless, blameless.”
“That’s the whole point of the cross, is that you’re gonna fail, and you’re gonna stumble, and you’re gonna feel dirty and you’re gonna feel awkward the whole point of the cross of Christ is there be this mighty picture of His love and pursuit of you, so the cross is necessary, because of you but it’s also the picture we have of just how far God is willing to go because He loves you.”
itsawonderfilledlife 