Good Friday

I have been reflecting for the last few days on Christianity in our culture today and have come to realize that according to our values that our actions demonstrate there is becoming less and less room for Jesus. I have been reading a book on this very subject and the author suggests that to be successful in our world you have to live and die by three philosophies:

1) What is in it for me?
2) If it feels good, tastes good, looks good, I'm doing it.
3) What is the least I can do?

Jesus on the other hand says the COMPLETE OPPOSITE. He asks "what's in it for YOU?" He says "I will offer my suffering and sacrifice up to my Father and He will wash over me and make me whole". He asks "What is the MOST I can do for you?".

Perhaps at no other time in history have the philosophies of man and the philosophies of Christ been in such conflict with each other. The author of this book has traveled all over the world and said the differnce between us and Christians 2000 years ago and us is that their faith WAS their lifestyle. Their lifestyle was not in conflict with their faith.

Today is good friday - the day Jesus died for us. How far have we come that we are now living lives that are indifferent to what Jesus did most of the time? When you really stop and process the moment - the pain, the emotion for him and his friends and family and also the creation changing event that was about to happen - salvation - how can we not strive to make our faith our life? What Jesus did for us IS life changing. How can our response be indifference?!

I found this poem today and really feel like it expresses the indifference that is so easy to fall into and also - so heartbreaking to Christ who just wants us so badly.

Indifference
By G. A. Studdert-Kennedy

When Jesus came to Golgatha,
They hanged Him on a tree,
They drove great nails through hands and feet,
And made a Calvary.
They crowned Him with a crown of thorns,
Red were His wounds and deep,
For those were crude and cruel days,
And human flesh was cheap.

When Jesus came to Birmingham
They simply passed Him by,
They never hurt a hair of Him,
They only let Him die;
For men have grown more tender,
And they would not give Him pain,
They only just passed down the street,
And left Him in the rain.

Still Jesus cried, 'Forgive them,
For they know not what they do!
And still it rained the winter rain
That drenched Him through and through;
The crowd went home and left the streets
Without a soul to see,
And Jesus crouched against a wall
And cried for Calvary.

I hope everyone has a happy Easter and really has a chance to meditate, celebrate and remember how MUCH God loves us and what an OVERWHELMING gift He gave to us.