Beauty of the cross

A few years ago I watched the movie, "The Passion". It was an amazing and beautiful depiction of the pain that Jesus endured. You are probably wondering why I chose to describe it as "beautiful". Have you ever heard the phrase "'beauty is in the eye of the beholder"? God saw the beauty of it way before we did. The beauty is within the "why". The why is You! The movie also touched me because of the "rawness" that it showed. I believe that until we can fully understand what Christ did for us and the suffering He endured, we can not realize how far that He has and will go for us. Have you ever felt a burden for someone? Have you ever felt the pain that someone was feeling because you were so close to them that your heart ached when theirs did? Well multiply that heaviness by about one hundred billion! Can you imagine carrying that pressure on your shoulders? I can't. Imagine being mocked and sentenced to death by the same people that welcomed you just days before. Imagine the betrayal. Imagine being wripped of your clothing and beaten naked for all to see your suffering. Imagine carrying a cross, that weighs ten times more than your own body weight, for several miles. Imagine being nailed to that cross by your hands and feet while your body lay limp and bleeding. Imagine having a sword shoved into your side, for the blood to pour out, and cause you to slowly bleed to death. Can you imagine? I can't. Do you know that He did it all for you? We need to know the true suffering that He went through for me and YOU. The suffering that He took on for us was something He chose to do. His last moments on that day should never be forgotten or thought of as easy. It was difficult and unbearable. He could have looked at His Father at anytime and said no! But, when He saw His Father's face, He saw you and your pain. He did it so that You would be saved from it all. He carried the "beautiful" love that God feels for you onto the cross. You are the beauty of the cross. I don't know about you, but that leaves me speechless.......... John 17;1-26 Jesus spoke these words, lifted up His eyes to heaven, and said: "Father, the hour has come. Glorify Your Son, that Your Son also may glorify You, as you have given him authority over all flesh, that He should give eternal life to as many as you have given Him. And this is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent. I have glorified you on earth. I have finished the work you have given me to do. And now, oh Father glorify Me together with yourself, with the glory which I had with you before the world was. I have manifested your name who you have given me out of the world. They were yours, you gave them to me, and they have kept your word. Now that have known that all things which you have given me are from you. For I have given to them the words that you have given me; and they have received them, and you have known surely that I came forth from you; and they have believed that you sent me. I pray for them. I do not pray for the world but for those you have given me, for they are yours. And all mine are yours, and yours are mine, and I am glorified in them. Now I am no longer in the world, but these are in the world and I come to you. Holy Father, keep through your name those who you have given me, that they may be one as we are. While I was with them in the world, I kept them in your name. Those whom you gave me I have kept; and none of them is lost except the son of perdition, that the scripture might be fulfilled. But now I come to you Father, and these things I speak in the world, that they may have my joy fulfilled in themselves. I have given them your word; and the world has hated them because they are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. I do not pray that you should take them out of the world, but that you should keep them from the evil one. They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. Sanctify them by your truth. Your word is truth. As you sent me into the world, I also have sent them into the world. For their sakes I sanctify myself, that they may also may be sanctified by the truth. I do not pray for these alone, but also for those who will believe in me through their word; that they may all be one, as you, Father, are in Me, and I in You; that they also may be one in us, that the world may believe that you sent me. And the glory which You gave me I have given them, that they may be one just as We are one: I in them, and You in Me; that they may be made perfect in one, and that the world may know that You have sent me, and have loved them as You have loved me. Father, I desire that they also whom you gave me may be with me where I am, that they may behold My glory that which You have given me; for You loved Me before the foundation of the world. Oh righteous Father! The world has not known You, but I have known You and these have known that You sent me. And I have declared to them your name, and will declare it, that the love with which You loved Me may be in them, and I in them."