Was thinking this morning...

As I was getting ready to begin my day with my Granddaughters today, I was doing my morning prayers. Multitasking...something that I'm pretty adept at. Anyway, I reminded myself of an acronym for prayer, mostly because I felt that my morning prayers were getting pretty stale. If they felt stale and boring to me, I can't imagine how they must be for God. Anyway.

As I said, I was reminded of an acronym; JOY. Jesus first; Others second; Yourself last. I didn't get much past the "y" because the thoughts that started to overwhelm me on the "J" took over.

We celebrate Christmas to remember Jesus' birth, although we are not sure of what day He was born. We celebrate the coming of the Messiah, the One who will save the world, on Christmas, but very few of us think past that day until Easter time and the end result of Christ's ministry.

As I was praying, or in my case, actually talking to Jesus, it hit me. I couldn't have done what He did, knowing the end result would have been so horrendous. I know the end, end result was He went Home, but the pain and the suffering He endured to get there...not sure I could have handled it without going batty insane.

For those of you who don't know the story, here's the condensed version. Jesus, who is the second in the Trinity (God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit), left Glory to become a man. If that starts your mind boggling, think of an egg...three parts to an egg, one egg. Same thing here. Three parts to God, One God. Anyway, He left Heaven to become a Man...being born of a virgin He entered this life like everyone else, as a baby. He grew up, living a sinless life and began His ministry at the age of 30. Now, I'm going to pause here.

All His life, He knew what waited for Him at the end of His ministry here on earth. All His life. He came face to face with Satan in the desert. Right there, I don't know if I wouldn't have reneged on the deal. Praise God, He didn't.

At the end of His ministry, He was rejected by His own people (the Jews), was hated by the Sanhedrin, the Pharisees and the Saducees, and was betrayed by one who called himself His friend and disciple. Again, not sure I could have done it.

When He was arrested, He was beaten, scourged, lashed...His beard was pulled out, a crown of thorns shoved on His already mutilated head, and yet He stayed His course. The lashing...He received 40 lashes (at least, probably more). Most lashings historically were 39, supposedly to keep the lashee from dying on them. Then they made Him carry the cross-beam for His own torture device up a hill. Now, just to give you an idea of how heavy this thing was, try picking up a railroad tie...this was heavier. Jesus had already lost mass amounts of blood and yet He carried the beam at least a little way before collapsing and then Simeon carried it the rest of the way for Him.

I don't know about you, but that would have been a deal breaker for me. For Jesus, it wasn't.

When they got to Golgotha, they laid Him down on the beam and stretched out His arms. They ran spikes, not nails, spikes into His hands/wrists. I write it this way because to have run the spikes through the center of the hand, the spike would have torn through the flesh and freed, albeit painfully, the victims hands, rendering the crucifixion useless. According to scientists, the spikes were run just under the palm of the hand into the wrist where the carpals would have stopped the spikes and held them fast,

They raised the cross beam up the already standing vertical beam and ran a spike through His feet. Crucifixion is an extremely cruel form of punishment as gravity pulls the body down, suffocating the victim. The one crucified then keeps trying to lift himself up to get air by pushing on his feet. From what I've read, the pain is excruciating and most mercifully pass out before they actually suffocate.
Still, being fully God and fully Man, Jesus stayed His course. But now, this is the part in our conversation that got to me.

As I was remembering all that He went through to be the ultimate sacrifice so that you and I didn't have to endure the pain, torture and separation from God that is Hell and the Lake of Fire, it occurred to me that He knew in a small moment what it was like to be me.

In that one moment when all of the sins of the world; past, present and future, were cast upon Him, when He willingly took them and took the punishment for them, GOD TURNED HIS BACK ON HIM. Why? Because our righteous God could not look upon sin, and Jesus had become everything that sin was, in that one brief moment. Right then, right then, Jesus knew what it was like to be mentally unstable, to be depressed, to be gay. He knew what it was like to be an adulterer, to be a liar, to be a thief, to be a murderer. He knew what it was to be deceptive, to doubt, to hate, to fear, to experience confusion, and any other sins or negative emotions that we can think of because they all came crashing in on Him. He never once experienced these sins, He saw them in others, but He Himself never experienced them until that one moment in time...and His Father, the One He loved the most, turned His back on Him. He cried, and shouted to God and asked why He had forsaken Him, but He already knew the answer, even as He spoke it. The sin nature took over at that one nanosecond and perhaps He felt hope slipping away, even though He knew it hadn't.

Then the veil was torn. The earth shook. The sky darkened, and He said..."It is finished."

He died.

I couldn't have done what He did.
I couldn't have done it knowing the pain, suffering, and torture I would have to endure. I couldn't have done it knowing the One I loved the most would have turned His back on me, even for a second. I couldn't have done it for people who I didn't know, much less someone who wasn't even born yet.
But I didn't have to, Jesus did it all for me.

So, you see, when we celebrate His birth at Christmas time, we actually celebrate our God who made a way for us to be with Him when this part of our lives is over. We celebrate the love that He had for us since before the foundations of the world were created. We celebrate the salvation that was provided, the blameless, sinless, spotless Lamb of God...Jesus, who despite knowing every moment that was coming; despite knowing the end result in this life, kept on His course so that we would never have to deal with Hell, torture beyond our comprehension or the Lake of Fire.

I couldn't have done it, but I thank God that Jesus could and did.

Have a wonderful, safe and blessed New Year.