YOUR attitudes seem Biblical, to me.
Keep in mind, please, that as a 7-8 or so year old kid, one day I was hysterical over the pain Christ experienced on The Cross in my behalf. My mother could not console me. I eventually calmed down with the hope that God somehow enabled him to bear it without it all being so outrageously over the line as it seemed.
Certainly God enabled Him to bear it. It was outrageously over the line.
A Roman Catholic et al crucifix still gives me the willies if I think about it much at all. And to view it grieves me and saddens me—not so much because of what it represents . . . as . . . that’s not His state. HE AROSE. Why not show THAT!
Okay Quix, my FRiend, I want you to invent a symbol which can be worn on a necklace or as a broach which represents the empty tomb! ... I would buy a dozen or more to give to famiuly. Make than a few dozen, so I could give them to family and friends.
Then all the lights come on and, seemingly from every corner, come women with pots of flowers. As they construct a sea of blooms around altar a banner unfurls in the back of the Church with huge letters: Worthy is the LAMB!
Bells jangle and we all burst into the Gloria in Excelsis.
Tears generally flow copiously.
I think this about the crucifix. It's dynamic. That is it points ahead to the empty tomb. But it also points at us in 2 ways. (1)This is how much He loves you. (2)If you are suffering, He is with you.
You know as a counsellor, that while it's good sometimes to place things in context, to say, "You will be healed, you will get better, this will resolve," Often the first thing to say (and we say it mostly by listening) is, "Yes, you are suffering greatly. I am here with you. I will hear all the details of your suffering. I won't tell you to shape up or that there are others who suffer more. I won't try to 'fix' you. I will be with you where you are."
So that is part of what the crucifix says to me.
The trail has been blazed, and Jesus Himself walks with us as we stagger up Golgotha, and He will continue to walk with us THROUGH (apparent) defeat to obvious victory.
Then all the lights come on and, seemingly from every corner, come women with pots of flowers. As they construct a sea of blooms around altar a banner unfurls in the back of the Church with huge letters: Worthy is the LAMB!
Bells jangle and we all burst into the Gloria in Excelsis.
Tears generally flow copiously.
I think this about the crucifix. It's dynamic. That is it points ahead to the empty tomb. But it also points at us in 2 ways. (1)This is how much He loves you. (2)If you are suffering, He is with you.
You know as a counsellor, that while it's good sometimes to place things in context, to say, "You will be healed, you will get better, this will resolve," Often the first thing to say (and we say it mostly by listening) is, "Yes, you are suffering greatly. I am here with you. I will hear all the details of your suffering. I won't tell you to shape up or that there are others who suffer more. I won't try to 'fix' you. I will be with you where you are."
So that is part of what the crucifix says to me.
The trail has been blazed, and Jesus Himself walks with us as we stagger up Golgotha, and He will continue to walk with us THROUGH (apparent) defeat to obvious victory.