The Kid on the Running Board

My thoughts this morning are of a Judean hillside in a faraway country and yet it seems so close.The air is hot and still, deathly still.The sandy soil is dark, darkened by the blood of men. Men who faced death, their own deaths over the preceding months and years. Here ended the lives of criminals from that walled city over there , on another hill.

There is the gate they would come through, the road that leads to this eery place. Often they were forced to carry the cross timber from which they would soon be suspended. Some proclaiming their innocence, some cursing their guards, ONE quietly, not struggling to get away, like a LAMB being led to the slaughterhouse. HIS face beaten to a pulp that even a mother would have difficulty recognizing. And yet she did. HIS back was also a red, gory mess. Centuries later preachers would describe it looking like a plowed field, but my grampa would disagree. He never plowed a field and had the furrows criss-crossing each other, his were straight and parallel. But that day, the day before the Sabbath, the blows of the whip had been so many ……

“Who is HE on yonder tree”? It’s my JESUS, my SAVIOUR and now my LORD. GOD’s SON, only son – dying for me! Why? Because HIS FATHER loved me, because HE loved me, and they still do. Yes, JESUS died that day in that dusty, faraway land, but HE arose three days later and today lives in my heart.

Have you met HIM?