Leave It

Leave It

Give all your worries and cares to God, for he cares about you. (1 Peter 5:7)

The hill’s quiet now. Not still, just quiet. Because for the first time all day there’s no noise. The noise began to subside when the darkness — that weird midday darkness — fell. And the darkness seemed to douse the ridicule because there were no more taunts, no more jokes and no more jesting. And, in time, no more mockers. One by one the onlookers turned and began their descent. That is, all the onlookers except me and you. We didn’t leave. We came to learn.

And so we’ve lingered in the semidarkness and listened. We’ve listened to the soldiers cursing, the passersby questioning, and the women weeping. But most of all, we’ve listened to the trio of dying men groaning their hoarse, guttural, thirsty groans. They groaned with each rolling of the head, and each pivot of the legs. But as the minutes became hours, their groans diminished, too. The three seemed as if they were dead. And if it weren’t for their belabored breathing, you’d have thought they were.

Then he screamed. As if someone had yanked his hair, the back of his head slammed against the sign that bore his name, and he screamed. And his scream cut the dark. Standing as straight as the nails would permit, he cried as one calling for a lost friend, “Eloi!” His voice was raspy, scratchy. “My God!” Ignoring the volcano of erupting pain, he pushed upward until his shoulders were higher than his nailed hands. “Why have you forsaken me?”

And the soldiers stared. The weeping of the women ceased. One of the Pharisees sneered sarcastically, “He’s calling Elijah.” But no one laughed. He’d shouted a question to the heavens, and you half expected heaven to shout back in return. And apparently it did. Because the face of Jesus softened, and an afternoon dawn broke as he spoke a final time: “It is finished. Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.”

Then, as suddenly as the silence was broken, the silence returned. And now all’s quiet. The mocking has ceased because there’s no one to mock. The soldiers are busy with the business of cleaning up the dead. Two men have come. Dressed well and meaning well, they are given the body of Jesus. And we are left with the relics of his death: three nails; three cross-shaped shadows; and a braided crown with scarlet tips.

Bizarre, isn’t it? The thought that this blood is not man’s blood but God’s? That’s crazy. To think that these nails held your sins and mine to a cross? Absurd, don’t you think? That a scoundrel’s prayer was offered and answered? Or, is it more absurd that another scoundrel offered no prayer at all? Absurdities and ironies. The hill of Calvary is nothing if not both.

We would have scripted the moment differently, don’t you think? Ask us how a God should redeem his world, and we’d have scripted white horses, flashing swords and evil laying flat on its back. God on his throne. But God on a cross? A split-lipped, puffy-eyed, blood-masked God on a cross? Sponge thrust in his face? Spear plunged in his side? Dice tossed at his feet? No, we wouldn’t have written the drama of redemption that way. But, then again, we weren’t asked to. The players and props were heaven-picked and God-ordained. We weren’t asked to design the hour.

But we have been asked to respond to it. Because in order for the cross of Christ to be the cross of our life, we need to bring something to the hill. We’ve seen what Jesus brought. With scarred hands he offered forgiveness. Through torn skin he promised acceptance. He took the path to take us home. He wore our garment to give us his own. We’ve seen the gifts he brought. Now we ask, what will we bring?

We aren’t asked to paint the sign, or carry the nails. We aren’t asked to wear the spit, or bear the crown. But we are asked to walk the path and leave something at the cross. We don’t have to, of course. Many don’t. Many have done what we’ve done before. More minds than ours have read about the cross; better minds than ours have written about it. Many have pondered what Christ left; fewer have pondered what we must leave.

We can observe the cross and analyze the cross. We can read about it, even pray to it. But until we leave something there, we haven’t really embraced the cross. We’ve seen what Christ left. Shouldn’t we as well? How about starting with our bad moments, or those bad habits? Leave them at the cross. Our selfish moods and white lies? Give them to God. Our binges and bigotries? God wants them all. Every flop, every failure. He wants every single one. Why? Because he knows we can’t live with them.

Many a summer afternoon at my grandmother’s, I’d play football with my cousin in the empty field next to her house. Many a summer afternoon was spent imitating Roger Staubach or Johnny Unitas or Bart Starr. But that empty field had grass burrs, and grass burrs hurt. You can’t play football without falling, and you couldn’t fall in my grandmother’s field without getting stuck. A few times I pulled myself out of a sticker patch so hopelessly covered that I had to have help. Kids don’t rely on other kids to pull out grass burrs. You need someone with skill. So, I’d call time out and limp to the house so my grandmother could pluck out the stickers — one by painful one. I wasn’t too bright, but I knew this: if I wanted to get back into the game, I needed to get rid of those stickers. 

And every mistake in life is like a grass burr. You can’t live without falling, and you can’t fall without getting stuck. But guess what? We aren’t always as smart as young ballplayers. We sometimes try to get back into the game without dealing with the stickers. It’s as if we don’t want anyone to know we fell, so we pretend we never did. Consequently, we live in pain. We can’t walk well, sleep well, or rest well. We’re touchy.

Does God want us to live like that? No. Listen to his promise: “This is my commitment to my people: removal of their sins.” (Rom. 11:27) God does more than forgive our mistakes; he removes them. We simply have to take them to him. He not only wants the mistakes we’ve made, but he wants the ones we’re making. Are you cheating at work or cheating at marriage? Are you mismanaging money? Are you mismanaging your life? If so, don’t pretend nothing’s wrong. Don’t pretend you don’t fall. Don’t try to get back in the game. First go to God. The first step after a stumble has to be in the direction of the cross. “If we confess our sins to God, he can always be trusted to forgive us and take our sins away.” (1 John 1:9) So, what can you leave at the cross? Start with your bad moments. And while you are there, give God your mad ones, too.

Remember the story about the man who was bitten by the dog? When he learned the dog had rabies, he began making a list. The doctor told him there was no need to make a will because the rabies could be cured. “Oh, I’m not making a will,” he replied. “I’m making a list of all the people I want to bite.” Couldn’t we all make such a list? We’ve already learned that friends aren’t always friendly, and neighbors aren’t always neighborly. We’ve already learned that some workers never work, and some bosses are always bossy. We’ve learned that a promise made is not always a promise kept. We’ve already learned that we tend to fight back. To bite back. To keep lists and snarl lips and growl at people we don’t like.

God wants that list. He inspired one servant to write, “Love does not keep a record of wrongs.” (1 Cor. 13:5) He wants us to leave the list at the cross. Not easy. “Just look what they did to me!” as we point to our hurts. “Just look what I did for you,” he reminds us and points to the cross. Paul said it this way: “If someone does wrong to you, forgive that person because the Lord forgave you.” (Col. 3:13) You and I are commanded — not urged, commanded — to keep no list of wrongs.

Besides, do we really want to keep one? Do we really want to catalog all our mistreatments? Do we really want to growl and snap our way through life? God doesn’t want us to either. We need to give up our sins before they infect us, and our bitterness before it incites us, and give God our anxieties before it inhibits us. And, since we’re there, let’s give God our anxious moments, too.

A man told his psychologist that his anxieties were disturbing his dreams. Some nights he dreamed he was a pup tent; other nights he dreamed he was a tepee. The doctor quickly analyzed the situation and replied, “I know your problem. You’re too tense.” Most of us are. So next time, try taking those anxieties to the cross. Next time you’re worried about your health or house or finances or flights, take a mental trip up the hill. Spend a few moments looking again at the pieces of the passion. Run your thumb over the tip of the spear. Balance a spike in the palm of your hand. Read the wooden sign written in your own language.

He did all of this for you and me. And knowing this, knowing all he did for us there, don’t you think he’ll look out for us here? Or as Paul wrote, “God did not keep back his own Son, but he gave him for us. If God did this, won’t he freely give us everything else?” (Rom. 8:32) We could do ourselves a favor by taking our anxious moments to the cross. Leave them there with your bad moments, your mad moments, and your anxious moments. Oh, and your final moment.

Frankly, barring the return of Christ first, we’ll have one. A final moment. A final breath. A final widening of the eyes and beating of the heart. In a split second we’ll leave what we know and enter what we don’t. And that’s what bothers us. Death is the great unknown. We’re always a bit skittish about the unknown. God promises to come at an unexpected hour and take us from the gray world we know to a golden world we don’t. But since we don’t, we aren’t sure we want to go. We even get upset at the thought of his coming. For that reason God wants us to trust him. “Don’t let your hearts be troubled,” he urged. “I will come back and take you to be with me so that you may be where I am.” (John 14:1,3)

Troubled about your final moments? Leave them at the foot of the cross. Leave them there with your bad moments, mad moments and anxious moments. And about this time maybe you’re thinking, “You know, if I leave all those moments at the cross, I won’t have any moments left but good ones.”

I guess you won’t.

Grace,

Randy