Violent

I am a pretty safe person.

I  like peace.  Turmoil about things or between people can put my stomach into knots.

Watching the news last night I was struck by just how violent our world is becoming...or maybe has always been.

Shep and I were watching a news piece about Damascus and some bombs that had exploded and taken the lives of un-expecting college students. The footage showed  blood spattered walls and concrete.  People were wailing at the scene of the massacre.  Lives lost in a very violent way.

Oh how we need Jesus.

But He was no stranger to violence.

Should we not be also?

The beginning of his life was marked by a crazy deranged king who murdered baby boys under the age of two.  Violent

His ministry was peppered with scenes of demon possession that threw people to the ground and had them cut themselves.  Violent.

Prostitutes were stoned openly.  Violent.

Lepers with open seeping wounds were forced to lie on the filthy ground and beg.  Violent.

John the Baptist's head was served on a platter for proclaiming this King of the Jews.  Violent.

Jesus used harsh words and turned over tables when His beloved temple was turned into a money pit.  Violent

The culmination of His life and purpose ended with being whipped beyond recognition while naked, deprived of food or drink, given a mocking crown littered with piercing thorns and nailed....nailed to a cross on display.  Violent.

I hate it.  Thinking of how it all went down for you and for me makes me cringe.  It was so incredibly violent.  I picture the scene.  I can hear the sounds and smell the foulness of it all.

But love was the motive.  Love for me.  Love for you.  Love for this violent world.

 "Then he released Barabbas to them.  But he had Jesus flogged, and handed him over to be crucified.  Then the governor's soldiers took Jesus into the Praetorium and gathered the whole company of soldiers around him. They stripped him and put a scarlet robe on him, and then twisted together a crown of thorns and set it on his head.  They put a staff in his right hand and knelt in front of him and mocked him.  "Hail, king of the Jews!" they said.  They spit on him, and took the staff and struck him on the head again and again.  After they had mocked him, they took off the robe and put his own clothes on him.  Then they led him away to crucify him."  Matthew 27: 26-31