Corrugated Tin Can Cut You!
What are two bored, Appalachian kids supposed to do to stir up some playing-time action on a summer day? They lived at the top of a mountain foothill.
I know of a couple of them who had the bright idea of using Dad’s scrap corrugated tin to build a road across the back yard. It would be fun to run down their “road” to hear it rattle beneath their bare feet. (It was summertime in Alabama.)
Everything was going along fine until the brother ran across a piece of tin and caused it to tilt upward just at the time that his younger sister reached it. She tripped. The tin caught her ankle joint and cut it deeply, almost to the tendon, the Achilles heel. The foot was dangling…in blood.
The brother had enough presence of mind to run to the kitchen door to get help from Mother. She had enough presence of mind to turn off her stove and end her canning project in her hot little kitchen. She always knew what to do! She grabbed a clean pillowcase for the foot, called for her teen driver since Dad was not there, put her kids in the car, and headed for the nearest hospital about 15 miles away. She would not let the inexperienced driver speed but kept steadily on her way. The sister was placed in Mother’s lap and the foot elevated to the dashboard. The wounded foot continued to bleed and turned the pillowcase completely red. Mother was doing all she could do for her child.
The hospital took immediate action with surgery, freezing internal parts together, and mounting a cast. The foot was saved and still works well today.
The kids were my younger siblings, and the grisly scene came back to my mind this week. I couldn’t help thinking of how that scene is in sharp contrast to the one we picture at Calvary.
There, a mother’s heart (Mary’s) was breaking at the injury and imminent death of her son. (Joseph was not there.) She could not wrap his bleeding feet or elevate them. Gravity was his enemy as the blood pulsated through his open wounds around the pierced feet. His death was just a matter of time. The Roman nails holding his hands were placed by enemies who didn’t care about him. His beaten back chafed against the crude cross.
The victim, Jesus, had already endured a spit-bath from mockers, foreign soldiers. He had been paraded before angry mobs in a kingly robe of purple. Several had slapped his face, plucked his beard, and placed a man-made “crown” of thorns on his head. And the hedonistic, weakling Pilate had ordered him flogged by a cruel Roman soldier, although he was already condemned to death. Jesus had previously told his followers that such things were going to happen to him.
Why? Everyone knew he was completely innocent.
The prophet Isaiah had already explained “why” several hundred years earlier. He said, “He was wounded for our transgressions. He was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed.” (Isaiah 53:5 KJV)
A few hundred years earlier, the prophet-king David had written his Psalm 22 as if he were a bystander observing Calvary and the body language of the crowd, wagging their heads and making comments about Jesus saving himself and his being a gazing stock to the crowds. He even described the scene of soldiers casting lots for the clothes the victim would no longer need. They did not want to rip the outer tunic into two or more parts because it would unravel, being knit as a unit.
Where does all this that leave us today?
According to the gospel of the Christian church, each individual needs to acknowledge to God that those wounds are for his/her own INDIVIDUAL sins. It’s a harsh, terrible penalty paid by a willing Savior as a substitutionary punishment to appease the divine wrath for things done or things that would be done by the evil heart within us.
Have you ever asked God to forgive you for your sins, and give you the wonderful gift of his righteousness, imputed to you instead of your sin, based on the sacrifice of his son? God’s word tells us, “He became sin for us, who knew no sin, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him” (2 Cor 5:21). That is heavy. It is what Isaiah means when he prophesied of Jesus on the cross over 700 years before: “All we like sheep have gone astray, we have turned every one to this own way, but the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all” (Isaiah 63:5). The GREAT EXCHANGE!!!
That wonderful forgiveness and new life in him is available NOW for those who call on him. Let that prayer rise up out of your penitent heart and start a new life today.
(Perhaps a better word for Pilate was "sadistic" since he ordered Jesus flogged after the order to crucify him. The beating was pointless for a man about to die. One pastor told us that those stripes paid for our healing as the Bible teaches. After all, He--Jesus--was God and could have skipped that part, but He willingly endured the cruel punishment to fulfill His assignment.)