Mark 15:26-32
Unless you have ever reached your breaking point, you could not begin to understand?
There are times in life, when one hang up leads to another, one problem leads to more, difficulties and hardships pile up until you feel like a football player at the bottom of a pile up, feeling the air being squeezed out of your lungs, wondering if you’ll ever get your head above water again.
In those moments, even the strong stagger. We find ourselves weak, saying things we wish we could take back, doing things that only leave us worse off, and not doing things that might help. Self-control flies out the window. Our horse blinders go up, so that we can only see ourselves, and we become bling to the needs of others. We falter.
Then we see Jesus on his way to the cross:
Betrayed,
manipulated with a kiss,
manhandled,
approached with swords and clubs when he was willing to go freely,
arrested,
abandoned,
lied about,
wrongfully detained,
wrongfully condemned,
spit on,
face covered,
struck – receiving blow after blow,
denied,
crowd crying out, ‘Crucify him”,
mocked,
thorny crown pushed on his brow,
stripped naked,
struck again,
spit on again,
crucified – one nail after another,
hoisted up,
and now, on the cross, mocked again:
“those who passed by derided him, wagging their heads, and saying, ‘Aha! You who would destroy the temple and rebuild it in three days, save yourself […] come down […]!” And “He saved others; he cannot save himself.” And “Those who were crucified with him also reviled him.”
Did they not know that he could appeal to his Father and at once be sent a legion of angels that could have leveled that place faster than Sodom and Gomorrah? But he was dying for them, dying for all who mocked him and mocked him again.
He was mocked again to empathize with all those who have to endure twice the hurt.
He hung in solidarity with those crushed by the weight of their own guilt and shame, to give the guilty his righteousness and to give the shamed his honor.
For all those who have failed – or who are failing right now – under the burden of too much pain or too much pressure, Jesus bore it all for you. So, when you come to your breaking point and break, you have a Savior who cannot be broken. When you say, “no not that cup,” he says to his Father, “not what I will, but what you will” (Mark 14:36).
In this world when we find out the road is twice as long or the load twice as heavy, think much of him who bore excruciating grief for you.
I know I would have crumbled in despair or exploded in anger under far less pressure, but he said, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do,” even as they divided his garments among them (Luke 23:34).
Christ is strong to save. Stronger than any of us. That’s the power of the cross.