The Lamb

Judean wood shaped by Roman axe.

Rough cut, gnarly and twisted as the hearts of the men who were in charge.

Away from home, living in a land they did not want to be in...

Living with a people they hated...
Living with customs and rituals that were foreign to them.
Any chance to exact some pain and punishment on this people 

soothed the homesickness.

Filled with cruel intention and curses that rained down,

each cross was fashioned to inflict the most pain on whatever back was 

stretched upon it.

The cross was an equal opportunity destroyer.

The cross...
Scripted, designed, and birthed from dark hearts,

who knew that such an instrument was created for more than pain.
It was constructed for humiliation.

More than the breaking of a body, that piece of wood was all about

crushing will and destroying spirit.
A cruel exclamation point on a hillside outside the city for all to see

and fully understand who ruled.

Day after day, the procession came.
Man after man, slowly moving through the gates toward the hill.

If you were standing at the gate, and you saw such a procession,

you knew that at least one of those in the group would not be coming back.

Humanity reduced to the lowest common denominator.

The pinnacle of a God's creation was now inflicting pain and suffering on another.

Cross up....

Cross down...
Body disposed...
:"Who is next?"

On and on and on like a demonic drumbeat.
Hammer to nail...
High pitched screams...

amid the cries of voices that aren't heard by the legionnaires.

Ears numb to the suffering...
eyes that no longer see humanity, but simply trash and garbage.

hearts long cold and hard.

Silly men....

they never saw Him coming.

He was lost in that endless procession of humanity..

that journeyed up the hill but never came down.

Lost in the drudgery and monotony of the daily discipline.
Had they took notice of this Galilean, they might have had second thoughts.
Had they looked....
I mean really looked....
With heart and not eye....
They would have seen a man unlike any other.
Jesus...
The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.

They never knew that they were part of a God-ordained event.
A dark ballet of sacrifice that would free the world...
The entire world....
Past, present and future..

from the penalty of sin...
Break the power of sin...
And destroy the presence of sin...

But they couldn't see...
Not until it was finished.

He went like a lamb to the slaughter.

They didn't take his life...

He gave it...
The cross didn't defeat Him...
The cross became the defining marker and moment when He took back

the keys to death, hell and the grave.

Some 2000 + years later,

sitting in a small house in Attalla, Alabama...

The power of the cross still burns with love

and an intensity that no demon can rail against.

Because I have been affected by the events of that day

on a hill outside the walls of Jerusalem,
I am able to say with all confidence...

That's My God!!

God on you...

mb