Palm Sunday

I was struck deeply today by Pastor Winburn's message, the baptisms, communion, and the music.  What a stirring inside to be reminded of the price our Savior paid for us.  We think of how so many in life have been mistreated; the atrocities of the Holocaust, genocide, slavery, and so forth.  So many have suffered.  But what of our Lord who endured a flogging from a cat o nine tails laced with jagged bones; severe enough to kill most men...who then carried  a cross of great weight bearing against the open wounds?  He wore a crown of thorns that pierced deep into his skin, a pain in and of itself we would find difficult to endure.  His journey carrying the cross was agonizing under these conditions.  When nailed to the cross, the beams were lifted and thrust into a hole while his body lurched into place.  Men who were crucified usually died of asphixiation, unable to get air into their lungs because of the mass of organs so hideously entangled around them.  Their legs were routinely broken to keep them from pushing themselves up to gulp fresh air.  Their tongues were usually cut out as their deaths often lasted days and the soldiers could not stand to hear their cries throughout the night.  Our Savior lived only six hours.  His legs were spared from being broken because of His shortened survival due to the extent of his wounds.  Add to this the fact that He took upon Himself the weight of the sin of the world.  YOURS and MINE.  At any moment He could have called legions of Angels to save Him.  His agony was so great He called out 'Why hast THOU forsaken me?'  Separation from God was His greatest agony, yet He had to do this to bear our sins.  Where were the attorneys on His behalf?  He who was guilty of no crime; was spat upon, mocked and tortured.  And by His stripes we are healed.  Think about that.  Think about the fact that you are loved so much by your Heavenly Father that He gave his life for you.  And most marvelously, He gives you the choice to deny Him or love Him.  When you die, if you have not known the love of Christ, a love-relationship that no other religion can offer, you will be eternally separated from a love so great that you will mourn it for eternity.  It wasn't the pain or the carrying of the world's sin that caused Christ His greatest agony, it was separation from God.  This is my definition of Hell:  eternal separation from the One who created us and  bathes us in a love larger than the universe itself.