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At the foot of the Cross
During Lent, many people give things up. For
example, they give up a meal, their favorite food or
even Facebook. When we 'give things up' for Lent,
we are reminded of the One who gave all things up
for us. During this time of fasting, prayer and
almsgiving, we come face to face with reality. We
rise into a deeper sense of awareness; we realize
that we are so frail and weak. We understand that we
become attached to earthly things and we pursue more
and more things, never really understanding what we
have had all along. Sometimes the thing we long for
the most is hanging right before our eyes.
During this time of Lent, we often see ourselves as
the people who witnessed the death of Christ, even
when we do not want to do so. At times, when we hear
the Passion of the Christ, we look at those
disciples and think how foolish they were. But if we
look more closely, we can see ourselves. We can
relate to the people crying out mockeries,
especially when things do not go our way in our
lives. We can even relate to the soldiers. In
reading the passages of the passion and death of our
Lord on the cross, we have many images presented to
us. One which struck me was the soldiers gambling at
the foot of the cross. The soldiers who stood by
Christ while He hung on the tree yelled at Christ,
scoffed at Him and cast lots to divide His garments.
These soldiers who were at the foot of the cross
gambling over His garments were blinded by their
sin. Jesus said on the cross, “Father, forgive them,
for they know not what they do.” If only they knew
what they were doing; if only they knew where they
were! These thoughts are the thoughts that crossed
my mind. We could see where they were. They were
at the foot of the Cross. Not just any cross, but
the Cross of God! They were too blind to see that.
We look at them and say that they were so foolish.
"If I were at the foot of that Cross, I wouldn't
have sinned," we sometimes say to ourselves. But we
are blind, too, because we Christians live our whole
lives at the foot of that same Cross. The soldiers
were at the foot of the cross and gambled over
Christ's garments; in other words, they were sinning
at the foot of the cross. They could have, at any
second, turned and reached out and touched God…but
they looked away and gambled instead. We live our
lives the same way. We are living our lives in the
same place that those soldiers were, at the foot of
the cross.
We have many similarities with these soldiers, such
as having the glorious death and resurrection of
Christ that wipes away our sin right within our
grasp, being so physically close to the grace of
God’s love shown to us all. Just as they could have
reached out and touched Christ, we, too, have that
opportunity every Sunday to touch, hear, smell and
taste Christ in the Holy Eucharist. There is one
difference; by the grace of God, we know where to
look. Although the soliders were blind and could
not see how close their Savior was to them and could
not hear in their hearts what He was saying, we know
the Way. We know how to fill our hands with Christ
and not with gambled clothing, not with money, not
with lustful thoughts and the like. We reach out
and touch Christ in the waters of our baptism as He
reaches out to us and we are reminded that He saves
us. His Spirit allows us to open up our mouths and
receive Him in the Lord's Supper so that forgiveness
of sin, life and salvation may be ours.
By His stripes, we have been healed. We are no
longer blind, for we are set free in Christ. By His
grace, we are able to see for ourselves. Even in
the middle of our sin, we can reach out and touch
God. We may look up and see Him. We can taste Him
and see that He is good.
During this Lenten season, allow yourself to reflect
on Christ's closeness to us. Let us reflect on that
when we sin and when we are in the depths of our
woe, when we try to fill our emptiness with earthly
things. Let us be thankful that through the Word,
we are able to see God and that by His Spirit we
know where to look for Him: in the Means of Grace.
We may open our eyes and see the One who was hanging
in front of us on a tree. No matter what sin we
commit (even gambling away our lives, money or
friends), we are at the foot of the cross of Christ
and are, therefore, never alone.
Mercy, peace and love,
Deaconess Rojas |
