Tag Archives: Roma Downey

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REVISITED: A Forest of Crosses

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Read Matthew 2:13-23; John 21:1-19

ALSO IN SCRIPTURE

“Then Jesus told his disciples, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.” (Matthew 16:24)

A father, a mother and their young three-year old boy are making a long and dangerous trip home. They had spent the past few years in hiding and decided that it was finally safe to return home. There wasn’t much certainty of what would be awaiting them upon their return home; however, they knew that they could not stay away forever.

As they finally reach their homeland, they are entering a hell that they cannot even begin to anticipate.  Their young son looks up, wide-eyed and frightened, left speechless by what his innocent eyes were witnessing.  The mother looks up and gasps, calling her husband to look up. Above them is a forest of crosses, erect and grotesque. To each of the crosses are lifeless corpses, blackened with the decay of death. The bodies are rotting and are torn open from the pecking beaks of birds and the gnashing teeth of jackals and other scavengers that have made a feast of the flesh.

I am guessing that many of you are probably pretty disturbed by the image that has just been painted in two short paragraphs. If so, just imagine what the how scarred the little boy must’ve been to look up and see the sight of those bodies nailed to a forest of crosses. Hundreds of them set in their places to send a message of fear to anyone who dare resist the law of the land. This little boy, whose name is Yeshua in his native language of Aramaic and whose known by the Greek translation of that name (Jesus), would never forget the images of the crosses that foreshadow the way he is ultimately going to die.

This is the scene of Mary, Joseph, and Jesus returning home from Egypt in the History Channel miniseries, “The Bible.”  And there can be no doubt that Jesus’ life in ancient, 1st Century, Palestine, would have been riddled with such horrific images. Jesus grew up in a world where the word “peace” equated to a cruel, merciless, and torturous death.  In Jesus’ world, there were was no democracy, there were no civil “rights”, and there was no middle class. There were only the haves and the have-nots.

When we hear Jesus telling his disciples that if they wish to be his disciples they need to deny themselves and pick up their crosses, let us not forget the image above of the forest of crosses filled with the rotting, decaying stench of corpses.  Jesus wasn’t talking about putting on a silver or gold necklace when he said “pick up your cross”; rather, he was talking about the Roman means of capital punishment.

As we move closer to Holy Week, and ultimately to Good Friday (the darkest day in the Christian calendar) let us reflect, not only on the sacrifice that Jesus made, but on the sacrifice Christ is calling us to make. If we are going to be Christ’s followers, if we really believe in Jesus’ message, then we will be willing to lose it all…no matter how bad it hurts…for the sake of Christ and his Good News.

While, I cannot tell you what your cross is, or how you are to bear it, remember that the only way to get to Good Friday is to pick up your cross and follow Jesus. The only way to get to Easter, to get to your own resurrection, is to die to all that you believe you are and to embrace who God proclaims you are.  The only way to truly live, is to die to whatever is holding you back from giving your all to God.  For most of us, this “dying is metaphorical”, but that doesn’t make it any less real.  We are called to die to ourselves, and be resurrected in Christ Jesus so that we may bring God’s hope, healing and wholeness to those who are in desperate need of the life that God has to offer.

THOUGHT OF THE DAY

To deny yourself does not equal self-neglect; rather, it equals the recognition that you are not “YOUR” own.

PRAYER

Lord, I surrender myself to your will. Use me in a way that will bring about your Kingdom here on earth. Amen.

Devotional

Down by the Shoreline

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Read Luke 5:1-11

ALSO IN SCRIPTURE
“[Jesus] said, ‘Come.’ So Peter got out of the boat, started walking on the water, and came toward Jesus.” (Matthew 14:29 NRSV)

Okay, now we are getting close to Holy Week. As always, I have pulled out movies from my “Jesus movie” collection, and I have begun to watch them. This Sunday evening, I sat down to watch “Son of God”, which is up there on my list of awesome Jesus movies. While, it doesn’t quite stack up when it comes to the temple scene, which is often how I gauge the quality of Jesus movie, it stacks up just about everywhere else…making it one of my more favorite films on the subject matter. It is a theologically responsible, open-minded, historically aware, and spiritually grounded film and I commend the film makers, Mark Burnett and Roma Downey, for making it.

As I was watching the scene of Jesus walking on the water and Peter jumping out of the boat to walk with him, it occurred to me that there is a very theologically profound connection to an earlier story of Jesus and Peter. In the beginning of the film, Jesus came to the Sea of Galilee and began to call his disciples. When he got to Peter, he found him returning from an “epic fail” of a fishing trip. Jesus called to Peter, but Peter practically couldn’t be bothered, he was too agitated over not catching any fish. So, Jesus came to him. That’s right, he walked chest high into the water and stood beside Peter’s boat.

“You’re not just going to come up into my boat!” Peter exclaimed. “That’s right,” Jesus answered, “I could use a helping hand.” Jesus reached out and Peter reluctantly, and somewhat confused, grabbed his hand and pulled him up into the boat. To make a long story short, Jesus told Peter to go back out and cast his nets. Peter protested that, but in the end he gave in, went back out to deeper waters, and casted his net. Jesus then touched the water, and before Peter could believe his own eyes, fish were filling the nets literally by the boatful. At first, Peter wanted nothing to do with Jesus, so Jesus came to him and invited him anyway.

Jesus’ taking the time to be invitational to Peter led Peter to a place of solid and bold faith. The same Peter, who was once an agitated and disinterested fisherman, was now doing the reverse of what had happened on that day at the beginning of the film. Now, instead of Jesus coming into the boat, Peter was jumping out of the boat to be where Jesus was! This, to me, brought on a profound revelation, one that instantly hit me as I was watching the film. So often, we are looking for people to come to us…and we get discouraged when the don’t; however, which one of us is willing to go to them, like Jesus did with Peter? Which one of us is willing to pursue people, to be where they are, in order to invite them to build their faith enough to join us where Christ is?

At some point we, too, were the ones being invited. Some of us may have accepted readily, while others may have taken more time to accept the invitation. Still, regardless of the time it took, we are all members of the universal body of Christ as a result of it. Christ is calling you to be invitational to others. Christ is calling you to invite people to be in your life, to join you for worship at your churches, and to join you in ministry to your neighbors around you. It is in the invitation, and in the pursuit of such an invitation, that we find the secret to becoming “fisher of people.” Fishing takes time, it takes patience, it takes faith, and it takes pursuit. I hope to see you down by the shoreline.

THOUGHT OF THE DAY
“Many [people] go fishing all of their lives without knowing that it is not fish they are after.” – Henry David Thoreau

PRAYER
Lord, climb into my boat and inspire in me a bold faith, so that I may become one of your fishers of people. Amen.

Devotional

A Forest of Crosses

3 Comments

Read Matthew 2:13-23; John 21:1-19

ALSO IN SCRIPTURE

“Then Jesus told his disciples, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.” (Matthew 16:24)

A father, a mother and their young three-year old boy are making a long and dangerous trip home. They had spent the past few years in hiding and decided that it was finally safe to return home. There wasn’t much certainty of what would be awaiting them upon their return home; however, they knew that they could not stay away forever.

As they finally reach their homeland, they are entering a hell that they cannot even begin to anticipate.  Their young son looks up, wide-eyed and frightened, left speechless by what his innocent eyes were witnessing.  The mother looks up and gasps, calling her husband to look up. Above them is a forest of crosses, erect and grotesque. To each of the crosses are lifeless corpses, blackened with the decay of death. The bodies are rotting and are torn open from the pecking beaks of birds and the gnashing teeth of jackals and other scavengers that have made a feast of the flesh.

I am guessing that many of you are probably pretty disturbed by the image that has just been painted in two short paragraphs. If so, just imagine what the how scarred the little boy must’ve been to look up and see the sight of those bodies nailed to a forest of crosses. Hundreds of them set in their places to send a message of fear to anyone who dare resist the law of the land. This little boy, whose name is Yeshua in his native language of Aramaic and whose known by the Greek translation of that name (Jesus), would never forget the images of the crosses that foreshadow the way he is ultimately going to die.

This is the scene of Mary, Joseph, and Jesus returning home from Egypt in the History Channel miniseries, “The Bible.”  And there can be no doubt that Jesus’ life in ancient, 1st Century, Palestine, would have been riddled with such horrific images. Jesus grew up in a world where the word “peace” equated to a cruel, merciless, and torturous death.  In Jesus’ world, there were was no democracy, there were no civil “rights”, and there was no middle class. There were only the haves and the have-nots.

When we hear Jesus telling his disciples that if they wish to be his disciples they need to deny themselves and pick up their crosses, let us not forget the image above of the forest of crosses filled with the rotting, decaying stench of corpses.  Jesus wasn’t talking about putting on a silver or gold necklace when he said “pick up your cross”; rather, he was talking about the Roman means of capital punishment.

As we move closer to Holy Week, and ultimately to Good Friday (the darkest day in the Christian calendar) let us reflect, not only on the sacrifice that Jesus made, but on the sacrifice Christ is calling us to make. If we are going to be Christ’s followers, if we really believe in Jesus’ message, then we will be willing to lose it all…no matter how bad it hurts…for the sake of Christ and his Good News.

While, I cannot tell you what your cross is, or how you are to bear it, remember that the only way to get to Good Friday is to pick up your cross and follow Jesus. The only way to get to Easter, to get to your own resurrection, is to die to all that you believe you are and to embrace who God proclaims you are.  The only way to truly live, is to die to whatever is holding you back from giving your all to God.  For most of us, this “dying is metaphorical”, but that doesn’t make it any less real.  We are called to die to ourselves, and be resurrected in Christ Jesus so that we may bring God’s hope, healing and wholeness to those who are in desperate need of the life that God has to offer.

THOUGHT OF THE DAY

To deny yourself does not equal self-neglect; rather, it equals the recognition that you are not “YOUR” own.

PRAYER

Lord, I surrender myself to your will. Use me in a way that will bring about your Kingdom here on earth. Amen.