From a blog post a few weeks ago:
Make no mistake, the cross of Jesus Christ is a drastic solution to a serious problem, and the problem is our fundamental distance, because of rebellion, from the God who created and loves us. He loves us enough that He was willing (”for the joy set before him” Christ did this) to sacrifice Himself to solve our problem. There is no other solution for such a deep difficulty as we are in. It was a very costly solution. Do we trivialize our own faults? Do we recognize the sacrifice by which we are freed from them?
As my friend Jimmy Fauntleroy sings:
Three crosses on a hill, I had forgotten now I never will
Three crosses on a hill; there’s yours and mine and there’s another still….This is the medicine that goes deep within your veins
Kills the cancer [but] has a tendency to intensify the pain
This is the marriage of purity and shame
This is a bloody war–it ain’t no game!
Life was won for us by direct confrontation. Purity and shame met on the cross, and purity defeated shame. Life met death, and life won. The result: the cancer is cured! But what is this “tendency to intensify the pain” about? Unfortunately I can’t bring the full context of Jimmy’s overall message here. He would also say, and he exemplifies, how greatly it intensifies joy and life. The pain, I take it, is what we feel when facing our fallenness, the big and little ways we need the “medicine that goes deep within your veins.” It is one of the ways we all participate in that mighty confrontation.
This is the paradox of Christianity and of Jesus. His death led to our life. We die to self, to live the fullest life. The deepest joy comes from overcoming the deepest pains. This is Good Friday, the day of remembering the deepest pains. But God is an overcomer, and Sunday’s coming!
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