| | NumbBody and spirit wracked with pain as he hung on the cross, Jesus refused the pain-deadening mixture of wine and vinegar offered to him.
His beard had been ripped out. A crown of thorns - thorns over an inch long - had been jammed onto his head, and blood still flowed across his face and into his eyes. His back had been shredded during the scourging, and his head and face still ached, a reminder of the beating he'd received shortly after his capture. In fact, he'd been beaten and whipped so brutally, he was hardly recognizable as a human being at all.
His heart was heavy, for He truly bore the weight of the world on what was now His pain-wracked, bleeding pulp of a body. Jesus had voluntarily taken on the sins of the entire population of the earth - sin, that which God found unbearable in His presence - and sickness as well.
Still, He refused the bitter mixture which would have at least numbed the pain.
To us, a mixture of wine and vinegar doesn't sound that tasty or helpful. But supposing we'd gone through what Jesus had - well, that might be another story. And having lost that much blood, and doubtless being terribly dehydrated - that bitter wine might numb the pain enough to make us grateful.
But Jesus refused the succor. No, He went through the crucifixion without physical aid of any sort. I suppose the knowledge that His action mean He was saving His children from an eternity apart from Himself and God the Father was a bit of a balm - but He was still God come to earth in the form of a frail human. Son of God though He was (and is), the physical pain He went through is unimaginable. He refused any help, any deadening of the pain, in order to fully redeem US, in order to spare us the pain we would suffer eternally should He decide against fulfilling His purpose.
Christ suffered every blow, every sting, the screams of every nerve ending for us. The understanding - or our wincing attempt at it - is staggering.
But that verse - that Jesus refused to drink the balm offered Him - made me think about how we, even more frail than He, turn to so many pain-deadening things: drugs, sex, alcohol, food, over-exercising, porn, work, theft, self-mutilation, murder, study - in order to dull the ache, the pain, the bleeding of our hearts and spirtis. Of course, they heal nothing; in fact, they only add to the agony, the weight on our hearts.
Yet all we really need to do to take away the pain that clings to us is turn to Jesus - the One who turned down anything that would have made his victory over death easier (at least on the surface). In a way (and this is shaky theology, if even that), Jesus didn't only take our place, dying and rising again so we could be with Him eternally; He refused all comfort so that we could find the greatest comfort of all in Him.
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| | Posted 1/9/2006 9:34 PM - 6 comments
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