Something Absolutely Unimaginable!

"Jesus on the Cross"

Oil on canvas

Rembrandt

Great events in history demand great art to highlight those events. No greater event in history has ever occurred than the birth,death, burial, and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ, fully man and fully God. We mark our keeping of the years with B.C. (Before Christ) and A.D. (Anno Domini) meaning 'in the year of the Lord'.  

Lots of well-meaning folk have concluded that Jesus Christ was just a good person who led an exemplary life.  But He did not leave us that option to consider.  As C.S. Lewis wrote: 

"This man we are talking about either was (and is) just what He said or else a lunatic, or something worse."

"We believe that the death of Christ is just that point in history at which something absolutely unimaginable from outside shows through into our own world."

If you look around at our world or listen to what's on the news, you can quickly conclude that we are in a mess.  More than that, look within your own soul and you know your own darkness there.  Jesus Christ became fully one of us to pay the penalty for our rebellion against God.  He lived here on this earth experiencing all that humanity suffers, and He willingly took God's wrath against our rebellion.  Because He did all that without sin, He could be the perfect sacrifice in our place.  Joan Osborne sang a song in the 1990's that spent some thought in the possibilities of Jesus becoming one of us in her song of that title...One of Us:

Jesus did come in human form.  He walked this earth and lived among us.  He came to offer a path of peace between human beings and God.  He did this because God wants us to take the opportunity to choose of our own volition to love Him.  The next time God comes, it will be with a different purpose.  Again, as C.S. Lewis writes in his book Mere Christianity:

"God is going to invade , all right:  but what is the good of saying you are on His side then,

when you see the whole natural universe melting away like a dream and something else---

something it never entered your head to conceive---

comes crashing in;

something so beautiful to some of us and so terrible to others that none of us will have any choice left:

For this time it will be God without disguise;

something so overwhelming that it will strike either irresistible love 

or

irresistible horror into every creature.

It will be too late then to choose your side...

That will not be the time for choosing:

it will be the time when we discover which side we really have chosen, whether we realised it before or not.

Now,

today,

this moment,

is our chance to choose the right side.

God is holding back to give us that chance.  

It will not last forever. 

We must take it or leave it."

The Descent from the Cross

Rembrandt

May you enjoy fully all the benefits of this Easter culminating in the joyous celebration of Jesus' resurrection from the dead on Sunday morning!

Live bravely and beautifully!