29 March 2010

Spend Some Time Before The Cross

Today's devotional from The Little Black Book (littlebooks.org) invites us, urges us, to spend some time before the cross. 

Mark 15.39 - When the centurion what stood facing him saw how he breathed his last, he said, "Truly this man was the Son of God!"

All is quiet at Golgotha.  It is sometime after 3p.m. Jesus is dead, and his body hangs limp and lifeless on the cross. 
A high-ranking Roman soldier, a Gentile, makes an astounding statement:  "Truly, this man was the Son of God." 
The very first words of Mark's Gospel are:  The beginning of the Gospel of Jesus Christ the Son of God."  As the Gospel moves along, no human being calls him Son of God.  A voice from heaven called him, "My Son" at his baptism in the Jordan and again at the Transfiguration.  Demons did when Jesus drove them out.
Now this Roman soldier proclaims that this man was the Son of God.  He is the first human being in Mark's Gospel to do so.
Jesus' identity is manifest in his suffering and death.  To get to know Jesus, I had best spend some time before the cross.
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I pray this Holy week, you will spend some time before the Cross, hearing the cries of Jesus, his word of forgiveness, his confidence in the Father and may you know as the centurion knows, that He is, the Son of God.

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