Having been raised in a protestant home and having spent the first twenty-two years of my life attending a church where the Cross of Jesus was always on display, it was a big cultural difference for me when I started to attend a Roman Catholic church where the same cross was always displayed but with one dramatic difference. Jesus was still hanging on the cross in the Catholic Church. This fact and this fact alone caused a lot of turmoil in my soul as I believed that Jesus went to the cross for me but at the same time came down from the cross, rose from the dead and went to prepare a place for me in Heaven. So why did the Catholics still have Him hanging there?
Sometime in the early 1990's as I was sitting in a Navy training room minding my own business working on my computer based instruction (CBI), God provided the answer to me. A lady came in and sat down in the learning station across the aisle from me and started to work. After a short while the CBI leader came in and greeted the first lady. A chit-chat session ensure from which I tried to distance myself as I found it very irritating and interrupting of my thoughts. Suddenly, I was shaken by the Holy Spirit to stop and listen. I did not pick-up immediately what they were discussing but the conversation became riviting when the CBI-Instructor said, "It's just like the Crucifix. I hate to look at it. I mean with Jesus hanging there all beaten, and bleeding, and crushed and dying. It's just so horrible, I can't stand to look at it."
In the next instant of a thought God spoke to me saying, "That's exactly what Satan wants. He doesn't want you to look at the cross and see the Redeemer, the price paid for sin, the pain and suffering offered for you redemption. He doesn't want you to realize the cost of saving your soul or the fact that there is nothing you could ever do to garner the same results as the time spent on that cross that Friday afternoon on Calvary by the Son of God."
Wow! I had my answer. The beauty of the Crucifix is in what it represents and what it is trying to make us remember, feel and understand.
I thought of this faith lesson on the anniversary of the terrorist attacks on the United States as I have listened to many discussions over the past several days as to what we should be watching in regard to the 9/11 news reels from ten years ago. Should we watch the Twin Towers being flown into? Should we watch the falling bodies? Should we watch the Towers fall?
To each of these questions I say, "Yes". We should watch. We should also encourage our children and grand children to watch and listen to the stories of those who survived or who lost a loved one that day. Watch but do not allow the pictures to stir up hatred for those responsible. Watch rather to help us remember the price paid by the innocent that day. Watch to learn the forgiveness that needs to be present. The price those who died paid was because we are a Christian nation. We are founded upon Christianity and we are a target to those who oppose our beliefs.
Just like the Crucifix, if we remove the vision of the act from our memory we have also removed the value of the price paid from our lives.
God Bless America! -DD
No comments:
Post a Comment