Thought for Thursday ~
Have you ever been working in a garden of blackberries or trying to cut flowers that had thorns? Like many of you, I have done that numerous times. Once I was reaching into a rose bush to cut the most beautiful rose ever. It was a gorgeous salmon color and so striking that I wanted to bring it into the house to enjoy. As I carefully reached with my left hand for this exquisite flower, designed by the Creator of the universe Himself, while holding the clipper in my right hand, I felt a piercing pain in my left hand.
As all of us know, that pain of being zapped by a thorn in unlike any other. It digs deep into your flesh with the precision of a well-sharpened knife, and it sends its pain throughout your hand, as if to say “don’t touch that rose!”
Several years ago when my granddaughter was just a toddler, she fell into a little patch of cacti. The low-lying small cactus bushes had the finest little thorns ever, appearing more like minuscule blades of clear sharp glass. Fortunately, the weather was cool so she had on a coat, which prevented the razor-sharp thorns from reaching her body, however, they did stick all over her clothing, as well as in her little hands and legs, and she wailed loudly with the pain they caused. As her parents soothed her, they carefully pulled out each little glassy thorn, and thankfully it wasn’t too long before she was as good as new.
Whenever I think of thorns, I can’t help but think of the crown of thorns that our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ endured when they placed it on His head before He was crucified. No, let me re-phrase that. I am quite sure they did NOT delicately “place” it on His head! Instead, we can only imagine how they performed this act of brutal defiance. They likely held this crown with its long menacing thorns which each tapered to a point that had the sharpness of a well-honed lancet, high above Jesus’ head. Then with a force, filled with the very anger they harbored, they probably lunged the crown down onto His head, not only piercing Jesus’ flesh, but possibly His skull, as well, causing His precious blood to stream down His already badly beaten face and body. And I am also quite sure, that at this point, they pushed it down as hard as they could into His head in order to make sure it would stay there and that He would feel its pain.
As we enter the season of Easter this year, I am reminded of the full price that Jesus paid for my sins. It is actually impossible to TRULY get my mind wrapped around the power of Jesus’ pain and suffering because it was so very humiliating and horrific. And it’s equally difficult to imagine that Jesus did that for ME! And for YOU! Do I thank Him each and every day for that?
Just my thought for the day…. Have a blessed one!
“Then the governor’s soldiers took Jesus into the Praetorium and gathered the whole company of soldiers around Him. They stripped Him and put a scarlet robe on Him, and then twisted together a crown of thorns and set it on His head. They put a staff in His right hand. Then they knelt in front of Him and mocked Him. ‘Hail, king of the Jews!’ they said. They spit on Him, and took the staff and struck Him on the head again and again. After they had mocked Him, they took off the robe and put His own clothes on Him. Then they led Him away to crucify Him.”
- Matthew 27:27-31
“Know this, you and all the people of Israel: It is by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified but whom God raise from the dead, that this man stands before you healed. He is ‘the stone you builders rejected, which has become the capstone.’ Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved.”
- Acts 4:10-12
Thought for the Day 