After a little hesitation, she abruptly dashed forward with a certain urgency. She seemed wild as a bear robbed of her cub. As she charged to the aid of her wounded son, he was already sinking under the weight of the cross he bore. Flashes and memories of his early years in her care overlaid the reality of his present and very precarious condition. Mary reminisced the times she was there to catch Jesus just as he stumbled in the fields. She remembered those countless times she had come running at the cry of her son just like any mother would.
But something was very different on this occasion: the savior would not be saved. As Mary stumbled unto the cross, she barely touched her son’s bruised face with her wobbling fingers. Both mother and son locked eyes. And Jesus out of pain stuttered: “Mother, see I make all things new.”
Mel Gibson’s dramatic representation of one of Mary’s last encounters with Jesus in the movie ‘Passion of the Christ vividly portrays probable pictures flashing through the mind of a mother in full view of her dying son.
Mary could not save Christ from the cross; the destiny he carried.
From birth, Mary had watched her son grow knowing his very end – the cross. But she did not fight it. She believed in his destiny until the end. Even though the brewing darkness in the twilight of his crucifixion had put out all lights with the exception of the one shining in her son’s eyes- the promise of a new life.
Only a course so noble would tame that protective instinct of a mother.
The Curse, the Course, the Cross, and Grace.
Why did he do it? Why did he go on the cross?
Only love so unconditional, only a course so noble, only grace so unmerited, will keep the Messiah on the cross. Not the nails. Not the soldiers. Not the wounds the King of kings sustained.
Why did he do it? Why did he go on the cross?
But this wasn’t just man’s fall, our world also fell under the pull of the creator’s curse. This is the curse Christ on the tree came to revert. As it is said, “cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree.”
But today, we still scavenge large rubble of our broken world. We still seek to mend the brokenness in our world on our own. We search for that iota of goodness in us that can fill the hole inside of us. We still seek satisfaction in money, sex, wealth, power, or a better version of ourselves.
We are trapped in the illusion that obtaining more and more and more of what has failed to satisfy us will eventually bring us satisfaction.
So we thirst for more money, more fame, and more successes.
Clean slate through the Cross
This is why only true redemption can mend the broken state we are in. This is what Christ has purchased on the cross and given to us all through his death.]
Grace says: behold, I make all things new.
Through Christ’s death, what is fallen is rebuilt. What is broken is restored. What is stained as the leper’s spot is made pure once again.
What you have done, what you are doing, and what you will do for Christ will not matter before God, except if seen through his death.
Grace tore the temple’s veil wide open for all and to all. Grace ripped wide open the gates of hell. That is all that heavens see when God on high looks on earth below. God sees Grace when he looks at me.
While Mary walked the fine line between ‘interfering’ and ‘not interfering’ in the story of Christ and the Cross. Peter the right-hand man of Christ and the rock on which Christ will build his church, was busy denying him. On three different accounts before all he would lead like a shepherd, he denied knowing the head of the church.
The cowardice of Peter highlights the necessity of Christ’s death on the cross rather than undermining it. Without his death on the cross, the best of man cannot serve the purpose of God. The best of the rubble from our broken world cannot rebuild our fallen world.
Grace is our destiny. Grace is our hope. Grace is what makes us stand before God with no sense of inferiority. Grace is what wipes us clean as brand new slates, ready for the master’s imprint. Grace is what makes us good for God. Grace is God’s Riches towards us At Christ’s Expense.
Grace is free but was never cheap.
