Glimpses from the Holy Land – Nazareth
February 25, 2011
Here I was in the city of Nazareth, it was day three of our holy pilgrimage to Israel, and we were visiting a pioneer village like museum, aptly named Nazareth Village. Our guide gave us a brief but extensive historical background of the periods of time that had passed since Jesus lived and worked in Nazareth.
As we continued on with the exhibits, I found myself standing before a cross from the time period of Christ. It surprised me that it stood barely six feet tall. The wood was rustic; it looked like two pieces of cedar trees tied together with rope. The knots in the wood where the branches were stripped off stuck out like sharp barbs. A piece of white linen draped over the horizontal beam and two crudely chiseled nails, one on each side were nailed into the wood. Crimson like stains penetrated the wood around the nail marks. Our guide shared that the Romans used the savagely cruel method of crucifixion to humiliate criminals and set a stern reminder to others to obey the law. He explained that North Americans respond with surprise when they see it for the first time because it looks nothing like the statuesque crosses they are familiar with in their Christian churches back home. This cross was anything but dignified. Have you heard the expression “The ground is level at the cross”? If you haven’t, it means that every person can come to the cross; it is within reach for everyone. But at that moment I had received another revelation; that the cross was at eye level as well.
This was the closest I would get to an accurate replica of the cross, and here I pondered those excruciatingly long three hours Jesus endured – as He looked into the eyes of His mother, His aunt, and the apostle John. They were the faithful three that stayed with Him until the end. It was on a cross like this one that Jesus looked eye to eye with a criminal and declared “today, you will be with me in paradise”. It was at eye level that Jesus looked into the eyes of John and His mother and said behold she is your mother and he is your son.
As I touched the mesh screen and peered into the cross display, I imagined Jesus nailed to that horrible undignified piece of wood, the nails were so thick that it made me cringe as I pictured each nail hammered into His wrist. They say that the nail was driven into the wrist bone which held up the whole weight of the body eventually leading to suffocation in the lungs; a long slow death. I felt the Lord’s eyes on me, and it felt like a warm blanket of unconditional love. While the guide led the group to the next exhibit, I stayed behind for just a few more minutes longer, I wasn’t ready to depart just yet. I had asked God to meet me, to change me, God, I said, I just want to experience you! And God does not disappoint! When you approach His throne with an expectancy to meet with Him, He will come, and reveal Himself to you.
Revelations 3:20 of the New Living Translation says “Behold I stand at the door and knock, if you hear my voice and open the door, I will come in, and we will share a meal together as friends.” The price that Jesus paid at the cross was for each one of us to restore us into intimacy with the Father. What a wonderful gift Jesus gave us, to step down from Heaven, to become flesh and fulfill a perfect plan of redemption that was laid out before the foundation of the earth.
The chorus of a song by Michael W. Smith comes to mind, they are beautiful words… Crucified, laid behind a stone, You lived to die, rejected and alone, like a rose, trampled on the ground, You took the fall, and thought of me, above all.
If you haven’t yet answered the knock at your heart…His name is Yeshua which translates Jesus of Nazareth. He is the Messiah that came to save each one of us with a love that we will never fully comprehend.
Shalom,
