March, 2024

 

Greetings,

 

Artisans of the cross. We don't think of those people who made the actual elements involved in the cross. We certainly may not think of them as artisans, artists, professionals in their craft, but someone had to craft the physical objects - the cross itself, the nails, the leather of the whip used to flog Jesus, the crown of thorns woven for Jesus to wear, the grave carved from stone. These things are all a part of the story, but we often do not think of how they came to be. During our worship this season of Lent we have been hearing some of the stories (as imagined by Jeffy Ingold in his book Artisans of the Crucifixion) of those who contributed to the crucifixion of Jesus. Some with no real awareness of to what they were contributing.

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What would Jesus do? Was a popular phrase several years ago. Meant to cause us to stop and ask in difficult situations, or even everyday situations when making a decision, "what would Jesus do?". During this season of Lent as we hear from the artisans of the crucifixion a more difficult question might be what have we done to contribute to the crucifixion of Jesus? To the persecution and the humiliation he endured on our behalf? That's not an easy question to answer and not a comfortable one to ponder, but we have all had moments when we were in the crowd shouting "crucify him" through our words and our actions toward other people.

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But here is the good new, for those artisans, and for us, when we know better we can do better, and we can receive forgiveness for our part in the crucifixion. What Jesus did, he did for each of us, that we might have life, that we might have forgiveness, that we might know God's great love for us.

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In Christ,

 

Pastor Pat