Wednesday 15 April 2015

The Beauty Of A Brutal Death

Over Easter, I was reflecting massively on the crucifixion and resurrection, and what that means for me and my life. Growing up in a Christian family, I knew all about the significance of Good Friday and Easter Sunday and had always been taught about what to believe, hearing the same spin on the story again and again. But this year there was a shift. 

I watched 'The Passion Of The Christ' for the first time on Good Friday. In all honesty, I was expecting it to be a lot tamer than it was. I found myself in floods of tears throughout the entire film. Of course, one of those reasons was because of the sheer brutality of watching Jesus being whipped to the point his flesh was torn from him, a crown of thorns forced through his skull, and 3 nails banged into him to support the entirety of his body weight. 

But the thing that probably made me the mascara run mess at the end, was that the very people that welcomed Jesus into Jerusalem, were then shouting 'crucify' him just five days later. For me, the shift came when I realised that, would I have been a part of the crowd, loving Jesus one day, then screaming for his death the next? The honest answer is I don't know, but I think it's most probable to assume I'd have been in the crowd. And if that was the case, then Jesus died a bloody and brutal death, for someone that nailed him to that cross. Every broken, crowd following, anger driven person stood before Jesus, imperfect, and nailed him to that cross. 

But the beauty of the cross, is that through Jesus being tortured, he takes our brokenness and makes us whole, he takes us from following the crowd and makes us seek Jesus and he takes our anger and restores us with peace. He removes the crowns of thorns we placed on him, and places on us a crown of beauty. Jesus didn't die just to become a figure that is sometimes spoken about, he came to die so that he could radically transform our lives, to take everything that stops us from being in relationship with God, and instead offer us eternity with the king of kings. 

When Jesus died, something shifted. And that shift is still felt today, when we really think about why a man who was pure and perfect faced the most brutal death just for you. 

'From the ashes a fire shall be woken, a light from the shadows shall spring; renewed shall be blade that was broken: the crownless again shall be king' - J R R Tolkien

J