“Holy
and compassionate God, your dear Son went not up to joy before He suffered
pain, and entered not into glory before He was crucified. Mercifully
grant that we, walking the way of the Cross, may find it the way of life and
peace; through Christ Jesus your Son, our Savior. Amen.” UM Book
of Worship, #347
The
way of the Cross is always difficult for us to envision because often we cannot
comprehend the level of cruelty human beings are capable of. Yet if we were
to look around us we would easily find unspeakable cruelty; in the way we
gossip about others in attempts to destroy their character and turn others
against them, in the way we withhold our tithes to the Lord and our charity to
those who are forced to do without, in the way we turn our backs on the least
among us because there is “nothing in it for us”. Cruelty is not always
defined by physical maltreatment of those we do not like or care for.
Jesus
deliberately aligned Himself with the “least” among those of society because
this is what He sought to teach us about the Kingdom of the Most High
God. “Those who are exalted will be humbled; and those who are humbled
will be exalted.” Jesus took on the pain of the Cross to spare us.
Should we not at least take upon ourselves the care of those who cannot care
for themselves just as Jesus bore what you and I cannot bear ourselves?
Blessings,
Michael
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