We All Gathered There

Good Wednesday morning! One might think that winter has been routed this year with the temps we've enjoyed this week. It is only March however, one might be premature in putting away the winter coats just yet, as we well know. Something you might not have known, you and I attended the crucifixion of Christ around A.D. 33 Wait, I don't remember being around at that time. In fact, with one notorious exception, we don't even remember wooden planking on ships. How could any of us possibly attend Calvary? I recall a certain verse where Jesus asked, "Forgive them, Father, for they know not what they do." I grew up in the church thinking that Jesus said that in reference to those of the Jews and Romans gathered around the cross or parading by to see the 'King of the Jews' as Pilate labeled Him. In reading Romans 7 this morning, I had a different thought.

You may recall that in a devotional some months or years ago, I wrote about how God sees all of Creation laid out like a painting before Him. We travel through only a bit of it and see only the moment we are traversing with much clarity. In this world of instant digital news, even that is suspect too. Our past grows more cloudy with each passing day with more memories piling on top of one another, and our future is impossible to see or predict with any accuracy. On the other hand, God sees all of it, right up to the end He has planned. This got me to thinking, always a dangerous occupation, but an insight came out of it. We use the words of Jesus as our commands even when He spoke directly to the 12 disciples. The great commission we obey in our giving to missions, preaching, talking, praying, baptizing, and even writing. Why then, did I think that Jesus spoke only of those gathered on the hill of the crosses at that particular time and place?

Of course, it is one of those things we tend to carryover from youth into mid...um, slightly older youth that the Holy Spirit will correct from time to time. Jesus spoke to the Father for all of us gathered there as He died for our sins on the cross. Suffering His last few breaths on the cross, He saw you, and me, and the believers in Africa, and the Christ-ones down under, and those who will believe in all the world, and those perhaps not yet born who will come to believe, and those who have slept before us. All gathered there to witness the great sacrifice though we are not allowed to remember the event now. Jesus saw every one who would be saved from the Creation to the Revelation. I believe that in a way we cannot understand, all of us were called to witness that event and we are called to witness about it now. I have no proof of this, but perhaps the evidence of things not seen as we read in Hebrews 11:1 is not only the future things, but the past things as well.

I read the other day that 'good-bye' is a contracted mashup of 'God be with you'. So for today, I'll step back to the old ways a bit and say "God be with you!"

Bucky