JESUS’ SUFFERING

Time with Jesus - Monday, 14 January 2013

Hi all,

Today’s meditation was prompted by the Scriptures relating to the sufferings of Jesus. I’ve tried to express the horror of the event in ordinary language. The poem deals with the physical and mental aspect of Jesus’ passion. That, however, is only a part of the story. The introduction refers to what we could call the “spiritual” side. Both are horrifying. Even so, He went through all this for you and me. He didn’t have too. He could have simply walked away as He had done in the past. But this was the hour. It was time for Him to do that which had been planned before the creation of the world. Thank God He did!

Blessings,

Jim & Phyllida Strickland

When Jesus Came to Birmingham

When Jesus came to Golgotha, 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 would not hurt a hair of Him, they only let Him die;
For men had 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 crowds went home and left the streets without a soul to see,
And Jesus crouched against a wall, and cried for Calvary.

by G. A. Studdert-Kennedy

Matt 10:8 Freely you received, Freely give		Time with Jesus – Monday, 14 January 2013			Matt 10:8 Freely you received, Freely give
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INTRODUCTION			DAILY LIGHT EVENING SCRIPTURES	Jesus’ Suffering
Does the name, “Woodbine Willie” mean anything to you? The only reason I know anything about him, is because he was a poet; my “style”, for want of a better word, is very similar to his. He name was Geoffrey Anketell Studdert Kennedy MC (27 June 1883 – 8 March 1929) He was an Anglican priest and served as a chaplain in WW1. Woodbine Willie was the name given to him because he took fags (cigarettes) to the soldiers fighting in the trenches. In doing so he often put his own life at risk. He earned the Military Cross by repeatedly rescuing men wounded in battle. When he died, old soldiers by the thousand, turned up to pay their respects to this extraordinary man. One old soldier stepped forward and placed a packet of Woodbines on his coffin. His poems spoke of war and the working man. I’ve attached a copy of one of them. A poem that has touched my heart for many years. The reason why I mention him is because of his way of communicating “life” in his poems. He wrote of things as he saw them, without pulling his punches. He is said to have been able to communicate the picture of a “suffering God” in the things he wrote and said. Today’s poem is my own attempt at communicating the extent of sufferings of Jesus for a people who didn’t love Him. He did this for “monsters of iniquity” that are/were not the least interested in Him. I could perhaps understand it if this was done by a father for his own sons and daughters. To do it for His enemies is not even on my radar screen. You and I are, up to a point, familiar with the physical and some of the mental agony He experienced. The ugliness and raw brutality of His passion. “The Passion of the Christ” DVD gives us a picture of what we could see of this terrible chapter in history. As we look at the DVD, we need to realise, that He could have ended it all with just one verbal command. After all, His voice spoke creation into existence. The same voice was surely able to obliterate anything and everything within any radius we could think. If He had wanted to, He could have summoned millions of angels to deal with His persecutors. How is it possible to endure what He endured and not have called a halt to the proceedings? Yet we only see a portion of what took place. We only see what human eyes can see. By far the greatest pain would have been experienced, as He took on the weight and pressure, of the sins and sickness of all humanity. To do so required super-endurance; the sort that only God Himself could provide. What did this do to Him? We will never know or understand. We get an inkling of an idea from what happened in Gethsemane. Jesus was not shrinking from the physical pain and anguish. He was neither the first. nor the last person to experience such treatment, at the hands of Roman or other power. The agony of taking the combined weight of sin, suffering, sickness, disease and death was what tempted Him to draw back. How do you cope with that? You and I would probably pray for death to end it all. For Him that was not an alternative. Not until everything was accomplished. He would have to stay the course until the very end. He could not lay down His life until He had completed that which lay before Him! He knew – He had always known - when that would be. It would be at the sane instant in time, when the Priests in the Temple took the sacrificial knife and slit the throat of the Passover offering ram. Only then was He in a position to say, “It is finished!” Only then could He dismiss His spirit. Only then would He have paid the price for the redemption of all mankind! Thank you Lord Jesus! Jim & Phyllida Strickland			15 I will make you and the woman hostile toward each other. I will make your descendants and her descendant hostile toward each other. He will crush your head, and you will bruise his heel." Gen 3:15 GW 14 But many were amazed when they saw Him. His face was so disfigured He seemed hardly human, and from His appearance, one would scarcely know He was a man. Isaiah 52:14 NLT 5 But the servant was pierced because we had sinned. He was crushed because we had done what was evil. He was punished to make us whole again. His wounds have healed us. Isaiah 53:5 NIrV 53 Why didn't you arrest Me in the Temple? I was there every day. But this is your moment, the time when the power of darkness reigns." Luke 22:53 NLT 11 Then Jesus said, "You would have no power over Me at all unless it were given to you from above. So the one who handed Me over to you has the greater sin." John 19:11 NLT 8 The one who does what is sinful is of the devil, because the devil has been sinning from the beginning. The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the devil's work. 1 John 3:8 TNIV 34 And he healed many who were sick with various diseases, and (He) cast out many demons. And he would not permit the demons to speak, because they knew him. Mar 1:34 ESV 18 And Jesus came and said to them, "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Mat 28:18 ESV 17 And these signs will accompany those who believe: in my name they will cast out demons; they will speak in new tongues; 18 they will pick up serpents with their hands; and if they drink any deadly poison, it will not hurt them; they will lay their hands on the sick, and they will recover." Mar 16:17-18 ESV 20 The God who gives peace will soon crush Satan under your feet. May the grace of our Lord Jesus be with you. Rom 16:20 NIrV	The suffering of Jesus on the day He bled and died, Was more than just a simple case of being crucified! That sort of death was common. Too many died that way. It was a sort of standard death, Rome practised in that day. Many men had been there; they died in agony. So what was extra special when He died for you and me? It wasn’t crucifixion. Though that was bad enough. It was a combination of factors that were tough. The gospels don’t describe it. The prophets made it clear, How much that He would suffer before His death was near! His face was so disfigured, His body was so marred, That He could not be recognised. This fact is very hard, For us to come to grips with. His beard they just ripped out. The pain of going through it. Try it, if you’re in doubt! But that alone was not enough to change how He appeared. They broke His nose and cheeks while people stood and cheered! The crown of thorns upon His head, would cause His blood to flow, So when the people looked at Him, Who was He? None would know! The whipping and the beating by the Romans was routine. They “qualified” in viciousness and knew what pain could mean. They didn’t have a limit; some men were flogged to death. And they’d continue flogging Him, until His final breath. The Roman way of flogging was to carry on and on, Until the victim passed away, or all His strength was gone. They seldom flogged a victim, who would be crucified. They knew that if they did so, too soon he would have died. They would prolong his agony as long as what they could, So wouldn’t flog the victim first. He’d die before he should. How long were people on the cross before they passed away? The records tell us of a man who lingered nine whole days. We know that they flogged Jesus for as much as He could take. They didn’t plan on killing Him. Their “jobs” were all at stake. But when at last they’d finished, the Lord could hardly stand. The cross was far too heavy. That wasn’t what they planned. Simon of Cyrene was compelled to do this for The Lord. He walked behind the cross. He couldn’t do much more. And then they stripped Him naked and nailed Him to that “tree”, For anyone to look at and everyone to see. But no one recognised Him; just as Isaiah said. Beaten, flogged and crucified and left till He was dead. But by this act of dying, the serpent’s head was crushed. And in the self-same process, the Master’s heel was touched. But what no one could understand and no one else could see, Was what was done to Jesus, was meant for you and me! For He was not a sinner. That one was you and I. And it is what we all deserve from God who reigns on high. Jim Strickland Written 14th January 2012