Failed
When the best is not good enough,
When the effort has achieved little,
When the direction happened to be backwards,
When...
When the nails went in,
When the spear pierced,
When the last breath escaped,
When...
When Jesus died on the cross did he fail? For those at his feet on that day, and for those who had followed him, the messiah was not looking in a good way. All the promises, the inherited ones and the ones he and made himself, seem to have gone up in smoke. As his life blood dripped away, what actually dripped away along with it? All he was to do, all he was to be, all those he was to save? To all intents and purposes he had failed. Looking at him on the cross, beaten, bruised, pierced ... dead, surely he had failed.
And yet there was more, there was so much more. There was life, there was hope, there was the resurrection. Failure turned to success. And when you analyse the period of failure there is so much more. There was the death that was defeated, there was the devil kicked in the pants and there was eternal life given to all people who choose to put their trust in Him, all of that in the three days when he had failed.
Which brings us back to the cross.
Do we not bring our failures, our mistakes, our faults to the cross where they are dealt with once and for all? The cross is the place where failure meets success, where the past is put aside and the future begins. Perhaps that is why it might appear that Christ failed on the cross, because at that point he took on all our failure, all our sin and so much more and turned them into fresh starts and new beginnings.
In failure we offer something fresh to God. In our brokenness we are mouldable, to be reshaped into a new thing. In failure we shed pride, self worth and self importance and come just as we are, a fresh canvas (to mix the metaphors) ready for a new picture.
In the cross Christ appeared to fail and yet in the cross failure was dealt a death blow. Just as he who was without sin takes our sin upon himself so he takes our mistakes and failures and allows us to start a new leaf. So for me the cross is not the symbol of failure, it is the symbol of possibilities.
When the effort has achieved little,
When the direction happened to be backwards,
When...
When the nails went in,
When the spear pierced,
When the last breath escaped,
When...
When Jesus died on the cross did he fail? For those at his feet on that day, and for those who had followed him, the messiah was not looking in a good way. All the promises, the inherited ones and the ones he and made himself, seem to have gone up in smoke. As his life blood dripped away, what actually dripped away along with it? All he was to do, all he was to be, all those he was to save? To all intents and purposes he had failed. Looking at him on the cross, beaten, bruised, pierced ... dead, surely he had failed.
And yet there was more, there was so much more. There was life, there was hope, there was the resurrection. Failure turned to success. And when you analyse the period of failure there is so much more. There was the death that was defeated, there was the devil kicked in the pants and there was eternal life given to all people who choose to put their trust in Him, all of that in the three days when he had failed.
Which brings us back to the cross.
Do we not bring our failures, our mistakes, our faults to the cross where they are dealt with once and for all? The cross is the place where failure meets success, where the past is put aside and the future begins. Perhaps that is why it might appear that Christ failed on the cross, because at that point he took on all our failure, all our sin and so much more and turned them into fresh starts and new beginnings.
In failure we offer something fresh to God. In our brokenness we are mouldable, to be reshaped into a new thing. In failure we shed pride, self worth and self importance and come just as we are, a fresh canvas (to mix the metaphors) ready for a new picture.
In the cross Christ appeared to fail and yet in the cross failure was dealt a death blow. Just as he who was without sin takes our sin upon himself so he takes our mistakes and failures and allows us to start a new leaf. So for me the cross is not the symbol of failure, it is the symbol of possibilities.
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