octolilly [through the years]

It is sobering to see the popular trend of Jesus as a really cool guy we worship. He’s my Co-Pilot and I even wear a bright pink bracelet with WWJD written on it to remind me of what would Jesus do in each situation. I’m cool, hip, and so in love with Him, yo. And I wear my DOG-tag (depend on God) as well. My PUSH (pray until something happens) T-shirt is proudly worn and I sing about Him like He’s my boyfriend. And we slowly lose the awe for Jesus Christ. He simply becomes an especially trendy Lord. 



He is so much more. He took the way of the cross.

“Today’s executions are swift and even somewhat merciful: the sudden snap of a spine, the flash of electricity through a body, the gradual sleep brought on by noxious gas, the quiet, swift death of a lethal injection. Crucifixion was designed to be an excruciatingly painful, humiliating, lingering death. Merrill F. Unger, the late biblical scholar, states that ‘instances are on record of persons surviving for nine days’ on the cross. 



Today the cross is an object of veneration. Designed into exquisite jewelry and artistic statuary, the cross has become a thing of beauty. The outline of the cross is set into mosaic tiles and highlighted with indirect lighting, framed in metal and etched in lovely, mood-setting stained glass. People of the first century would be shocked to see our modern treatment of what was, to them, an object of brutality and the cruelest kind of death. It would be comparable to our wearing the image of a hangman’s noose on our lapel or framing an artist’s rendering of an electric chair on our living room wall. In the first century the cross meant death…but not just any death. It meant the most hideous, anguished death imaginable.”



- Max Lucado, The Darkness and the Dawn



What Thou, my Lord, hast suffered
Was all for sinners’ gain;

Mine, mine was the transgression,
But Thine the deadly pain.

Lo, here I fall, my Savior!
‘Tis I deserve Thy place;
Look on me with Thy favor,

Vouchsafe to me Thy grace.



What language shall I borrow

To thank Thee, dearest friend,

For this Thy dying sorrow,
Thy pity without end?
O make me Thine forever;

And should I fainting be,
Lord, let me never, never

Outlive my love to Thee.



– Bernard of Clairvaux, 12th century monk

The Not-so-serious:



My Pastor is quite humorous at times. He’s in his early 30’s and tends to add sarcasm to most of his average conversation. Tonight he began cracking jokes about a memo sent around telling the ushers what to wear tonight. All of the ushers except one had on a black suit and red tie…and so did my Pastor. He began teasing the one who had a gray sport coat on…but it was all in good fun. There really was no memo – just coincidence. The funny part is that a little boy just died laughing when he made those comments and began giggling uncontrollably. I thought I wouldn’t be able to stop laughing. Pastor was about to pray over the offering and we were all snickering because of the little boy. Ahh, what would church be without all of the little ones? 



The Serious:



Psalm 119:121-128, 136

Open my soul to see,
I love not thee above all.

For riches and pleasures

Mean more than your letters,

My heart into sin has fall’n.

Open my soul and be,

The One who breaks down the fears,
For your joy and your peace,

Do mean more than these things,

I cleave to Thy word in tears.