O Sacred Head

O Sacred head now wounded with grief and cares bowed down. 

I love to imagine and picture what it was like during the events depicted in the Bible. This past Sunday evening, my church remembered the Lord's Supper. For some reason, my mind tends to track to the disciples and their sorrow, shock, and fear. Can you imagine?  All of their hope, gone. In an evening, a moment, a kiss. It was over. The Bible clearly shows that, even though Christ told them over and over, they did not understand the forthcoming death and the resurrection to follow. 

Perhaps this is a strange question, but what did Christ have going through His mind during his last few days and hours?  I began this post with a line from a well known hymn, and I am wondering if it is correct...  How did Christ look? When my God was there on the cross bearing my sins, how did his expression communicate to those around Him His true thoughts?

Pain, certainly, was there. A physical pain. The torture surrounding the final execution on the cross would've almost killed a person. Almost. I cannot imagine, nor even attempt to describe this pain. 

I wonder if you could look in His eyes and see the love and compassion that He had.  He cries out "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do!" Luke 23:34. He did not send a bitter look at the Pharisees standing off in their mock righteousness, nor did He only ask forgiveness for their sins, but also for the sins of everyone there. This would include the faithful few followers who stayed at His cross.

Perhaps grief was there. Imagine the pain of rejection of all but a few of your closest friends. To be killed by strangers. Even more acutely, perhaps, the rejection of His Father. To have a part of the Trinity be ripped from the other two is unfathomable. Because sin is so awful, our perfect Holy God could not even look at His Own Son as all of the sin from every person throughout time was laid directly on our Redeemer Lamb. To be rejected by friends and family is one thing, to be rejected by God is the epitome of despair.

But I also wonder, during His last few moments, was there a look of confidence, of victory? John 19:31 records the final words of our Savior "it is finished." As the Devil crowed with delight at the death of his enemy, was there a slight smile that decried the winner as being the One hanging on the tree?

I've seen many paintings of Christ on the cross and, almost exclusively, they show a defeated Christ with no hope. When I imagine my Christ, I see my victorious Hero who has brought hope to the world.

He did all of this, just for the sake of allowing us miserable creatures into His heaven! It is purely our own fault that we needed a Savior, yet He gives of Himself. No man took His life, He freely gave it up for our sake, John 10.

Because of Him,
Missa