Today's Daily Lesson comes from Mark chapter 15 verses 29 through 32:
29Those who passed by derided him, shaking their heads and saying, ‘Aha! You who would destroy the temple and build it in three days, 30save yourself, and come down from the cross!’ 31In the same way the chief priests, along with the scribes, were also mocking him among themselves and saying, ‘He saved others; he cannot save himself. 32Let the Messiah, the King of Israel, come down from the cross now, so that we may see and believe.’ Those who were crucified with him also taunted him.
When Jesus was crucified he was mocked and blasphemed and chided by the crowd. Cynically, they said they would believe if only he saved himself from death -- the irony, of course, being that in death he was saving the world, including, I believe, those who mocked him.
It must have been hard for him to swallow his words, and renounce his power. He could have come down. We would have come down. But he stayed. He suffered the insults, and the mocking. He endured the humiliation. He refused retribution. The beady-eyed gleam of the scribes and priests went without challenge. They carried their smirks with them back down the hill of Golgotha.
And He never said a mumblin' word.
And by his silence, he wrought salvation. By his failure, he won victory. And in his humiliation he saved his humanity -- and ours.
It is tough out there right now, beloved. We can easily turn to despair and even violence. But we must remember to not be overcome by evil, but seek to overcome evil with good.
And in the end, we believe, and we work, and we even suffer for goodness' sake.
Some words from James Russell Lowell to conclude:
"Though the cause of evil prosper,
Yet 'tis truth alone is strong;
Though her portion be the scaffold,
And upon the throne be wrong:
Yet that scaffold sways the future,
And, behind the dim unknown,
Standeth God within the shadow
Keeping watch above His own."
Ryon Price is Senior Pastor of Broadway Baptist Church in Fort Worth, Texas.
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