With Open Arms

Never were those arms opened so wide as they were on the Roman cross. One arm extending back into history and the other reaching into the future. An embrace of forgiveness offered for anyone who’ll come. A hen gathering her chicks. A father receiving his own. A redeemer redeeming the world.

No wonder they call him the Savior.

– Max Lucado – Open Arms

Everytime I watch this scene in The Passion of The Christ, I cry. It evokes a lot of feelings in my heart. There’s a scene, after Jesus’s first hand is pierced through the cross, when one of the soldier’s pulls Jesus’s arm so his hand is in line with the hole in the cross. Whenever I see that, it reminds me of fingernails scratching the blackboard. The sound is deafening, similarly, the sight of that gruesome, brutal scene makes me wanna go blind.

But that kind, loving sacrifice never broke Jesus. All the time they whipped and scourged him, he thought of us. In fact, even on the cross, with blood all over him, with an aching body and nail-pierced hands, he was thinking of us. He said “Forgive them Father, for they know not what they do”.

That’s how deep his love extends. My love, compared to his is pathetic, miserable. You know, he knows the number of hair on your head? Even the one that just dropped. To him, we’re not a serial number. We’re not tagged with Identity Card Numbers, HE KNOWS US BY NAME. That’s how awesome my God is and this is why I am not of this world but merely in it.