Passion

I stood under the pounding hot water of my shower this morning remembering the depictions of the unbearable beating Christ bore and I cried.

It used to be Sarah's and My tradition to read the entire book of the Gospel of John aloud to each other, taking turns by chapter, every Good Friday. It is my favourite of the tellings, not because the facts are different, but because it is a literary account. A bit more poetic in its rendering than the other three, which are synaptic. But I digress.

Seeing 'The Passion of the Christ' last night overwhelmed me, but I didn't feel as though I had been run through, emotionally so much as I felt the weight of God's love. I was seeing the story I know, the story I believe unfolding before me--and it was not less meaningful because I know it. The only comparison my fumbling brain can find this morning, in the grey light of this Good Friday, is that it's like hearing someone you love say your name in a certain way, that only He or she can say it, and in that instant, you know you are home. If I wished anything, it was that I could know what it was like to look into his eyes, to have experienced him when he was on this earth in bodily form...to have taken bread from his hands...to have heard him laugh. I know I will; I know he lives; As he promised, he dwells in me, and he knows my name. And when he died; love for me, for the world, compelled him to endure the indignity of torn flesh on two wooden beams so that he could rise again to redeem those who believe.

Nothing but relentless passion could enable a man to stand still for a bogus trial on bogus charges. It is human nature to self-protect, to want vindication, to be enraged over injustice perpetrated against one's self. But as he now asks me to do, he denied himself, took up his cross, and followed the road to the end. Greater love has no man than this....

As for me, I wonder how I can be so prone to wander....

Prone to Wander (Chris Rice)

On the surface not a ripple
Undercurrent wages war
Quiet in the sanctuary
Sin is crouching at my door

How can I be so prone to wander
So prone to leave You
So prone to die
And how can You be so full of mercy
You race to meet me and bring me back to life

I wake to find my soul in fragments
Given to a thousand loves
But only One will have no rival
Hangs to heal me, spills His blood

How can I be so prone to wander
So prone to leave You
So prone to die
And how can You be so full of mercy
You race to meet me and bring me back to life

Curse-reversing Day of Jesus
When you finally seize my soul
Freedom from myself will be the
Sweetest rest I’ve ever known

How can I be so prone to wander
So prone to leave You
So prone to die
And how can You be so full of mercy
You race to meet me and bring my back to life