"21 Days since Jesus proved He IS"

`“21 Days since Jesus Proved He IS”

Of course we could proclaim His reurrection at any period of historical time and the impact it has on our own outlook should be the same:  There is more to life than buying, selling, eating and drinking to stay alive!  It is the very soul each of us has been given as life opens before each one as a mystery that will unfold within us to compare with the meaning of the Crucifixion/Resurrection event that is once for all of humanity.

How many of us should be able to discern the difference between life and death as a reality which will challenge our understanding of God’s plan to forgive our sins?  The answer to this deep searching presents for some a life-long trek of ups and downs, gains and losses that we all face daily.  

We cannot say Christ was!  We must acknowledge He IS; He is the I AM, Yahweh who is forever!  That is not a term to be studied for another classroom exam, it becomes the only crux of who God is and his Passion that began with the Incarnation of Christ.  This may prove to be too deep for those who have not heard why God sent his Son to die on the Cross.  People who wear a cross around their necks represent their belief in Jesus, but do they adhere to the real impact that what he did was to save their soul from eternal death. 

This theme could have been written for Good Friday but the expediency of who and why Jesus hung on the Cross should be a reminder of God’s great love for his people every day and thank him every moment we can.  “But we do see Jesus “crowned with glory and honor” because he suffered death, he who “for a little while” was made “lower than angels,” that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone.  (Heb 2: 9).  By all conscious thinking we should have been the ones to hang there, but by this sacrifice Christ stood for our sins and redeemed each one by his sacrificial love. 

By forgetting why this crucifixion means more than another tenet of instruction about Easter we should allow this event to open for us the hidden surprise each of us will see in eternity.  Each utterance of thanksgiving should begin with our belief that this event saved us from exclusion from heaven.

I wrote this article on Good Friday and think back for the last 50 years as a deacon the feeling of waking up on Good Friday morning, thinking about these three days of the Triduum and just what Christ did for me; being rejected from the very beginning of his ministry, absorbing the spit and whipping after being condemned to death, feeling the nails that no other human being could sense as this inhuman treating of even a guilty person would receive, and the three hours he hung above the earth with the reality of redeeming me for all eternity. 

Thank you my God who would have done this for me even if I was the only human left on earth.  There is nothing I can do to earn this since it is your grace that has freed me from eternal death.  

Ralph B. Hathaw