The Beauty of the Cross...

“An instructive writer has made a mournful list of the honours

which the blinded people of Israel awarded to their long expected

King.

1. They gave him a procession of honour, in which Roman

   legionaries, Jewish priests, men and women, took a part, he

   himself bearing his cross. This is the triumph which the

   world awards to him who comes to overthrow man's direst

   foes. Derisive shouts are his only acclamations, and cruel

   taunts his only paeans of praise.

2. They presented him with the wine of honour. Instead of a

   golden cup of generous wine they offered him the criminal's

   stupefying death draught, which he refused because he would

   preserve an uninjured taste wherewith to taste of death; and

   afterwards when he cried, "I thirst", they gave him vinegar

   mixed with gall, thrust to his mouth upon a sponge. Oh!

   wretched, detestable inhospitality to the King's Son.

3. He was provided with a guard of honour, who showed their

   esteem of him by gambling over his garments, which they had

   seized as their booty. Such was the bodyguard of the adored

   of heaven; a quaternion of brutal gamblers.

4. A throne of honour was found for him upon the bloody tree;

   no easier place of rest would rebel men yield to their liege

   Lord.  The cross was, in fact, the full expression of the

   world's feeling towards him; "There", they seemed to say,

   "thou Son of God, this is the manner in which God himself

   should be treated, could we reach him."

5. The title of honour was nominally "King of the Jews",

   but that the blinded nation distinctly repudiated, and

   really called him "King of thieves", by preferring Barabbas,

   and by placing Jesus in the place of highest shame between

   two thieves. His glory was thus in all things turned into

   shame by the sons of men, but it shall yet gladden the eyes

   of saints and angels, world without end.”

—Spurgeon's Morning & Evening Readings, April 7th

Isn't it incredible how our Lord Jesus can take something SO humiliating, and make a beautiful thing out of it?  “His glory was thus in all things turned into shame by the sons of men, but it shall yet gladden the eyes of saints and angels, world without end.”  I find that just like my Jesus!  He takes something so wretched and gory, and turns it into a fountain that sinners can flock to to be cleansed from our own filth!.  Praise the Lord!

“There's a fountain free, tis for you and me
Let us haste, oh haste, to its brink
Tis the fount of love from the source above
And He bids us all, freely drink”

—Mary Bridges Canedy Slade