Today I'm still taking in my viewing of the Passion last night. It's funny. This is the 3rd or 4th time I've seen it, but for some reason it felt like the first time, because the physical experience of it was so deeply profound. I picked up on tons of things I didn't catch at all before, and for me the best part was feeling as though I was given an answer to prayer.
I've been struggling with work lately. I've been in this mode of not liking what I'm doing at all... blah, blah and letting my will run in another direction and just not focusing on what I need to do. Granted there's a lot of other stresses going on, but it's simply been a matter of making time to just sit down and think through things. Which I haven't been doing (I have this "avoidance" aspect of my personality which doesn't make things easier.
But then I'm at my friend's house with a couple of other people and we break open the DVD and pop it in the player. And somehow.... I'm awakening to a deeper realization of something as I watch. I watch Simeon get dragged into helping out by carrying the cross for Jesus. And of course, he doesn't want to have anything to do with the situation. "I'm an innocent man, I have nothing to do with this." But then he's walking with Jesus, and Jesus falls to the ground, and in the process of him falling Simeon stumbles under the weight of the cross. Now you would think that it would be the other way around. That he'd let out a sigh at the lesser weight. On the contrary the pain begins to set in.
It got me thinking..... how many times I mumble, push away and not want to get involved with my own duties, my own responsibilities ... thinking somehow that I'm taking on an extra burden. But in truth, I'm like Simeon.... falsely thinking that I'm shouldering a burden that isn't mine, only to realize that it's not my strength, it's not my will, it's not my superior status thats keeping anything afloat. And the burden isn't the other guys.... it's mine. I made it, I created it. And truthfully, if Jesus wasn't leaning against Simeon/me, the cross would be way too heavy to shoulder all the way to the goal. Not his cross.... mine. Jesus is going out of His way to carry my cross, and is gracious enough to allow circumstances that will call upon me to willingly take part in shouldering it, even if for just a little while,.... so i can share in the pure grace and beauty of having the opportunity to stand so closely next to him.... share so intimately in a work that had the power to annihilate death and sin(broken relationships) in this world.... IF WE LET HIM.
There's a part where Jesus is lying on the ground in agony, and Simeon reaches out a hand to grasp Jesus and pull him back up on His feet. When Jesus is pulled back up into Simeon's side, He puts his arm around his back and they stare at each other. They share and the communicate to one another without any words.... what will be done, what is being done. Same heart, same will, same vision.
Hard not to let Him look at you... at me. To let Him pierce inside us with his clear eyes .... and find an incredibly phenomenal strength flood through our veins for whatever He asks us.
Because there is only one way..... through His heart.
