"When the days drew near for him to be taken up, he set his face to go to Jerusalem."

That's how Luke describes the beginning of Jesus' last trip that ended on a cross on a hill called Golgotha/Calvary. Why did he insist that he had to go that way? It's plain he knew the journey would end in death. Why?

The cross was no accident. Jesus did not miscalculate. He tried to explain to his disciples. They tried to warn him against going. But Saint Luke remarks that after the resurrection, "they remembered his words."

Jesus understood what God had been trying to make clear for centuries: in the sacrifice of Isaac, in the exodus, in the temple sacrificial system, in Hosea's suffering for love, in Isaiah's suffering servant. Somehow it never quite took.

In a scene in Eugene O'Neill's drama The Green Pastures the Lord and Gabriel are having a very serious discussion. Gabriel says,

"You look awful pensive Lord. You been sittin' here, lookin' this way, an awful long time. Is it something serious, Lord?"

"Very serious, Gabriel."

"Lord, is the time come for me to blow?"

"Not yet, Gabriel; I'm just thinkin'."

"What about, Lord?"

"I'm tryin' to find it, too. It's awful important to all the people on my earth. Did he mean that even God must suffer?"

And a voice off stage cries, "Oh look at him! Oh look: they goin' to make him carry it up that high hill! They goin' to nail him to it! Oh that's a terrible burden for one man to carry!"

And the Lord responds, "Yes!"

Among Jesus' last words on the cross were these from the twenty-second Psalm: "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" Yet Jesus knew the whole Psalm and knew that later is said, "he did not hide his face from me, but heard me when I cried to him."

Jesus knew he was bringing God's atoning love to the whole world. This is the focus of the Lenten season. This is the good news for us and at the same time the challenge to face that cross and follow Jesus.

Prayer: Thank you Lord, for the drawing power of the cross. Keep our faith and determination firm through these days until the cross of Christ is indeed our cross and his triumph our hope. We pray in his saving name.

Amen

Devotion and prayer is an exert from Rev James A. Walther, Th.D.'s Radio Spot; Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Dr. Walther is a Kerygma author.