Crosses are not painless. A raw back against rough wood. Add nails and thorns. Crosses are humiliating and shameful. Crosses are not calculated in our life plans. They change the way we live our days. Suffering is the way life is. The non-aloof God revealed in the Bible came to incarnate Himself, without protest, in life the way it is. We identify with the suffering One. He fully identifies with us. He knows us. By the cross we now know Him.
“Christ also suffered for you…and while being reviled, He did not revile in return; while suffering, He uttered no threats, but kept entrusting Himself to Him who judges righteously; and He Himself bore our sins in His body on the cross, so that we might die to sin and live to righteousness for by His wounds you were healed. For you were continually straying like sheep, but now you have returned to the Shepherd and Guardian of your souls” 1 Peter 2:21, 23-25 (NASB).
