Another day with Jesus

THE MEN AT THE CROSS           Naked and beaten, Jesus hung on a Roman cross, flanked by two thieves. A crowd had gathered to watch the Roman crucifixion. During the past twenty-four hours, Jesus had faced six courts of justice, extreme humiliation and derision of both his person and divinity through floggings and mocking. The guards  rammed a crown of thorns into his scalp. His friends had abandoned him.      At noon, darkness hid him from the prying eyes of his mockers. As he heaved his last, he cried out in a loud voice.                 “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”       He quoted from Psalm 22:1, tortured by his internal anguish.  A soldier filled a sponge with bitter wine and raised it to Jesus’ lips, and left him to see if God would rescue him. Forsaken by his Heavenly Father, he carried the weight of God’s wrath, our sin, upon the cross, but ...

  Psalm 12 What do you think? How do you express it?   Enough!     Kate had met her friends, Jake and Beth, for a double date to the poshest restaurant in town, but her boyfriend had never arrived. She pulled out her phone and gave him a blast.   “You stood me up! You rotten sod!”         “Get lost.” The line clicked shut. “Now you’ve put your foot in it!”     Beth's reaction hit home and s he squirmed, but the guy had gotten under her skin. Could she stop the damage, or would she make it worse? Part of her thought he deserved a tongue lashing because his mouth often ran ahead of his brain.   “He thinks he’s kingpin, always promising me something, but he never turns up, and when you finally track him down, he dismisses you with the weakest of excuses. He’s as slippery as an eel.”   She’d vented, but it hadn’t solved the problem.   We’re all familiar with blusterers, or perhaps we’ve caugh...