I want you to follow me. This is a scene of the cross.  Matthew 27:33-45, “And when they had come to a place called Golgotha, that is to say, Place of a Skull, they gave Him sour wine mingled with gall to drink. But when He had tasted it, He would not drink. Then they crucified Him, and divided His garments, casting lots, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet…” Verse 45, “Now from the sixth hour until the ninth hour there was darkness over all the land. And about the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice, saying, ‘Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani?’ that is, ‘My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?’ ”

As I began to read that afresh for myself, I began to think. There are many terrible and horrifying scenes that could be mentioned to try and give us a 2020 picture. A real sense of what this moment could have looked like. But, nothing even compared to the reality of that moment. What it must have looked like to those, on that day, 2000 years ago. Could a world-wide famine that slowly drains the life out of children and adults, and even animals, compare to this moment? An out of control fire that would burn up towns and houses and every tree and everything that was alive would be consumed by that fire. Could it compare to it? Or, a blood soaked battlefield which is saturated with the atmosphere and the nauseating odor of death everywhere. Like the recent movie, 1917, that showed the battle in World War I. Blood everywhere. Bodies everywhere. Could it even compare to this moment?

I ask, again. Could it compare to a tornado or hurricane that blows in at night and vacuums up everything in its path, and it spews out across the landscape an unrecognizable pile of death and destruction?  Or, how about a violent earthquake that terrorizes living things everywhere, from animals to humans, because of the violent shaking of the very foundation of what we call the earth? Whole islands will vanish. In a matter of just hours, they’ll be gone. Cities are twisted and ripped apart, like towns and villages of cardboard. And, all known life ends up buried under rubble and the visible evidence of this destructive power called an earthquake.

Can that even compare to the moment that changed everything? It changed the world! That one day changed everything! It changed religion. It changed the way men think. It changed everything around the globe.

There is more to this message! You can watch it on YouTube at RockCCBaltimore!