One Look at the Cross

In Billy Graham's autobiography, he made the statement that early in his ministry he and his team agreed that every message would tell about the Cross. The Cross is where lives are changed! One look at the Cross and one is never the same again!

At this time of the year, we especially turn our thoughts to the Cross. I plan to cover three aspects of the Cross in the next three blogs, beginning with this week as:

GETHSEMANE

In the Garden of Gethsemane, (Matthew 26:39) Jesus prayed "O my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me...". I know in His humanism He feared the pain and physical agony He was to face, but I do not believe this was the 'cup'. The worst agony He had to face was that point in God's time frame when God and sin would clash on the Cross. Because God cannot look on sin, God the Father would have to hide His face from His beloved Son. Andrew Murray states in like this: "so terrible was the aversion and anger of God against our sin that Christ was left in the thick darkness, because God, when sin was laid upon Him, had to hide His face from Him." Not only did the Father hide His face, but because of our sin, our Lord would have to go into the 'lower parts of the earth' (Eph. 4:9) which no doubt was 'hell'. Acts 2:27 and Psalm 16:10 both state: "thou wilt not leave my soul in Hades (or hell)." The horrors of that moment would be greater than any physical horror facing Him. He cried from the Cross, "My God, My God, Why hast thou forsaken me?" He knew, yet oh, the agony He must have felt. Even we who are believers do not have to face our dying moments alone. Jesus will be there with us as it says in Psalm 23, "Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil for THOU art with me."

In Luke 22:44 it tells us that while praying in the Garden, He literally sweat drops of blood. Sweating blood has a medical term, called "hematidrosis". The blood comes to the surface of the skin via the capillaries, as in blushing, and with intense emotion it is forced through the sweat glands of the skin. The medical dictionary defines it as 'excretion of bloody sweat'. With this phenomenon, the skin is greatly sensitized and the body is weakened.

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(Next week will be -The Trials)