This low quality photo had a price tag of $8,000. I passed by these three crosses on some country highway somewhere in Alabama. I decided to turn around to capture a photo because the scene brought to mind a favorite exchange:
“One of the criminals who hung there hurled insults at Jesus, ‘Aren’t you the Messiah? Save yourself and us.’ But the other criminal rebuked him. ‘Don’t you fear God,’ he said, ‘since you are under the same sentence? We are punished justly for we are getting what our deeds deserve. But this man has done nothing wrong.’ Then he said, ‘Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.’ Jesus answered him, ‘Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in paradise.’” Luke 23: 39-43
That’s it? He’s in just for recognizing Christ as his Savior? Yep. No religious hoops to jump through. No time to turn his life around. No hope of saving himself. No sure outward sign that God was still in control.
Two men were crucified with Jesus. Only one recognized Him – by faith not by sight. By faith not by figuring out how all the pieces fit together. By faith even though the current reality was an eruption of death, darkness and chaos.
After snapping a few photos, I got back into my SUV and was back up to 70 mph in no time. Five minutes later, a woman coming from a side street, ran a stop sign. I was swerving hard left when the small car crashed into my right passenger side…just a few feet away from my daughter sitting in the back seat on the same side.
The shock set in. Phone calls were made. In a surreal blur, my unharmed daughter and I watched as the ambulance sped off with the young lady inside. Her parents had come to the scene of the accident and I learned they’d just been in church with their daughter. It was her first time back to church after a radically rebellious two year absence. Their glorious Sunday morning turned to chaos in an instant.
And so it is with life. How quickly we can crash. When does God author it? And when Satan authors it why does God allow it? Does the origin even matter in the anguish of the moment?
As for the injured driver, she was released from the hospital two days after the accident with internal and external injuries still healing. I wrote to her several times. Oh, how I wanted to share with her the freedom and peace I’d found in a relationship with Jesus Christ. What a redeeming story it would have been if I could have pointed her to the Savior who loved her so much that He died for her on the middle cross. Surely then the accident would have made perfect sense…two women…coming from fresh God moments…meet for a divine appointment. But my three letters went unanswered.
So much suffering and evil in this world go unanswered too. “‘For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,’ declares the LORD. As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.” Isaiah 55:8-9 Can we recognize Him even when we do not understand His ways? Can we experience and endure thorn-crowned, nail-scarred, bloodied lives and still trust that God is who He says He is?
All had gone hideously mad on the day Christ was crucified. It seemed the sin-drunk world had won. Three days later, the sunrise brought the Son rise and eternal victory was won.
“I have told you these things, so that IN ME YOU MAY HAVE PEACE. IN THIS WORLD YOU WILL HAVE TROUBLE. But take heart! I have overcome the world.” John 16:32-33
God is the only One with an eternal lens. Try as we might, it’s impossible for us to know the mystery of God and how He will, as promised, fit all the pieces together for good. But it is possible to transfer our trust to Jesus. How assuring to know that until all the blanks are filled in – we can recognize and “know Christ and the power of His resurrection.” Phillipians 3:10
