Lent
Thus says the LORD; “In an acceptable time I have heard You, and in the day of salvation I have helped You; I will preserve You and give You as a covenant to the people.” Isaiah 49:8
When man devised crucifixion as a means of execution, man’s unkindness sank to a new depth of cruelty. The cross was an implement of torture. After victims hands and feet were nailed to the cross, the cross was then hoisted up and planted in the ground, with the feet of the victim barely clearing the ground, so that he would be in full reach of every hand that might choose to strike him. There the victim hung in agony, starvation, insufferable heat and thirst during the day and cold at night until dead.
Of all the symbols the Christian Church might have adopted—perhaps a shepherd’s staff, a dove, and empty tomb, a star, a lamb—why did the early Christians choose a cross, a stake driven into the ground upon which a person was nailed until dead?
In the Bible verse today God is speaking to the Messiah, a prophecy about Jesus. The Messiah is calling upon His Father for help and God answers the pleas, “In an acceptable time I have heard You, and in the day of salvation I have helped You.” Here is a prophecy, some 700 years before, of the suffering of Jesus upon the cross, crying for help from God the Father. The prophecy was that the Father would answer Jesus and enable Him to go through all the suffering necessary to accomplish mankind’s salvation.
In a midweek Lenten worship, when the last bit of light had faded from the sun coming through the church windows, the preacher announced his sermon would be “the love of God”. He then took a lighted candle, walked to a statue of Christ hanging on the cross and held the candle beside the wounded hands, then feet, then side of the statue. That was the end of the sermon.
Heavenly Father, as Thou didst help Jesus bear His Cross for my sins, so also help me to
bear my crosses in life. Amen.