Heads turn gazing from the cross

Albert Bogle September 20, 2023 2 3

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Luke 23: 39-43 (NRSVA)

39 One of the criminals who were hanged there kept deriding him and saying, ‘Are you not the Messiah? Save yourself and us!’ 40 But the other rebuked him, saying, ‘Do you not fear God, since you are under the same sentence of condemnation? 41 And we indeed have been condemned justly, for we are getting what we deserve for our deeds, but this man has done nothing wrong.’ 42 Then he said, ‘Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.’ 43 He replied, ‘Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in Paradise.’

Gazing down from the cross, Calvary, the place of the skull, was a bear pit. Soldiers mocking, the crowd sneering, and Jesus nailed to a cross then lifted up with cruelty, so the wooden beam could drop with a shudder into a deep hole, racking every bone in his body. There he hung in the middle of two criminals. All eyes gazing, tongues wagging and fingers pointing.

The pain of all three men must have been excruciating. Yet one of the criminals through his pain hurls insults at Jesus, no doubt swearing with the pain trying to gain relief through blame. While the other turns his face towards Jesus and in doing so lifts his gaze high above the turmoil and tragedy of the moment and is the first to be drawn into the Kingdom through the Cross of Christ. The backbiting and deceiving is healed and the pain — no longer significant, for with Jesus no one is beyond the drawing gaze of Divine forgiveness and healing.

Lord have Mercy On Me

Lord,

I’m still gazing

Wondering

Reflecting

Where I would stand

If I were there at the foot of the cross

Yet Your gaze asks me

‘Where are you standing now?

What are you doing now?

Why are you here now in this moment gazing?’

Lord,

Your gaze takes me back 80 generations

And 80 generations on —

I realise I must decide

I must take sides

Discipleship is costly

I too, like the criminal

Must crucify myself

Die to my old self

My old ways

My backbiting and deceit

And pray

“Lord have mercy on me a sinner”.