Yesterday, it all went down. The man who spent the last three years of his life dedicated
to loving others without concern of what the world thought, who performed
miracle after miracle for people who both praised his name and I’m sure some
who just took his gift and threw it away, was humiliated, beaten, and then spent
hour after agonizing hour hanging by spikes ripping into his flesh. It was brutal and excruciating pain,
made all the worse by Roman soldiers pointing and laughing while throwing die
to see who would get his only possessions he ever owned. But his entire life was preparing him
for this day……..it was destined to happen from the beginning. And why was that? It was because of me and because of
you. We were the hammer, the
hammer that drove the nails into his body. We were the ones who chose to turn away from God time and
time again. We had our own agenda
and our own game plan. We chose
evil, and hate, and nasty words, and death, and tearing people down, and
letting people starve, and letting children wallow in sickness and did
nothing. We should have been up
there, hanging from those beams and writhing in pain. We deserved this.
But that man, the one named Jesus, he did it for us. In fact, just as he was being taken
captive by the those soldiers the other day, he turned around and gave a little
nod to the disciples, saying, “Don’t worry, I’ve got this.” This was yesterday.
Tomorrow, well we know what’s going to happen then. Jesus was telling us all along what
would happen. While he would die,
he would live again. He would live
forever and we could too if we were willing. Yep, that’s what’s going to happen
tomorrow and I can’t wait! It will be the best day ever! But what do we do now?
What can we do now? What do we know how to do? Well there is one thing we know how to do because we did it
so well before, and that is to be the hammer. But this time, what if instead of causing pain and death we
choose to heal and free. What if
tomorrow, on that amazing day, we look around for people who have build up
these walls around themselves.
These walls of anger, fear, failure, pain, sorrow and loneliness that
have been building for so many years.
The walls that are now thick and tall, and take our hammers and chip
away at them. Some of these walls
we might only crack a little bit, but others might come down with one
swing. What if we hit, and hit,
and hit, and hit these walls with love, compassion, understanding, patience,
and most importantly God’s forgiveness so that we aren’t the only one who get’s
to see Jesus live again and reach out his hand to us? What if other could see
and experience this as well? It’s
about time this hammer of mine did some good in this world.
