Crucifixion Or Cruci-Fiction

CHAPTER
8

 

GOD'S WAYS ARE NOT OUR
WAYS

 

 

Was the prayer of Jesus (pbuh)
being answered? He had cried (o the loving father in heaven for help,
with strong crying and tears:

"And being in an agony,
he prayed more earnestly;

and his sweat was, as
it were, great drops of blood falling down to the ground"

(HOLY BIBLE) Luke 22:44

What can be expected from such
heart-felt prayer and importuning? One of the four brothers¹ of Jesus reminds us
that:

"The effectual fervent prayer
of a righteous man availeth much."

(HOLY BIBLE) James 5:16

Such heartfelt prayers! Such
blood-curdling cries! Such sorrow and sobs! A cynic remarked that it
would even bring God down from His Throne.²

1. The Christians give brothers and
sisters to Jesus, through a union of Mary with Joseph the Carpenter.
(Matthew 13:55-56).

2. God Almighty does not go up or
down He is Omnipresent. All-Prevading. Present everywhere!

 

GOD ACCEPTED JESUS' PRAYERS

 

Paul confirms that his
supplications did not fall on deaf ears:

 

"Who, in the days of his flesh, when he had offered up prayers and
supplications with strong crying and tears unto him that was able to
save him from death, and was HEARD in that he feared."

 

(HOLY BIBLE) Hebrews 5:7

What does it mean "God
heard" his prayers! It means that God accepted his prayers.
God Almighty is not deaf at any time. He is the All-Hearing God. He
heard (accepted) the supplication of Jesus in the same way that He had
heard (accepted) the prayer of father Abraham. Abraham, in his old-age
had prayed for a son, and Ishmael was born. The words of Abraham had
become flesh. Ishmael literally means "GOD HEARD", in Hebrew. Zakariah
also in his old-age prayed for a son, and God heard (accepted) his
prayers, and John the Baptist was born. Now Jesus cried for help, and
God heard (accepted) his prayers:

 

"And there appeared an angel unto him from heaven, strengthening
him."

 

(HOLY BIBLE)
Luke 22:43

 

Strengthening him in the faith, in the hope that God will save him.
This is actually what he was beseeching God to do for him. When and how
rests alone in the Hands of God. His ways are not our ways. Count the
blessings so far:

(a) An assurance from Heaven.

(b) Pilate finds him, not guilty!

(c) His wife shown a dream in which she is told that no harm should
come to Jesus.

(d) Legs not broken!

(e) In a hurry to bring him down from the cross.

 

WHAT USE — "THE BONES" . . .

 

The
fourth above: "and they brake not his legs", we are
told was in fulfilment of a prophecy:

 

"He keepeth all his bones, not one of them is broken."

 

(HOLY BIBLE)
Psalm 34:20

If the
bones of a victim were to be protected from harm, then they could only
be of benefit if the person was ALIVE! For a person, already dead,
intact bones mean nothing. Whether they are sawed into pieces, or
smashed into smithereens, it will not make any difference to the
resurrected body, the spirit or the ghost. But for living persons on
the cross (like the "crossmates" of Jesus), the breaking of the legs
made all the difference between life and death. The pagan Romans were
not hell-bound to fulfil any prophecy. Their reason was that they "SAW
that he was dead already, they brake not his legs". — (HOLY
BIBLE) John 19:33

"SAW" is
a very simple word. We may yet ask, what did they see? Could it be the
fulfilment of the words of Christ: "seeing, ye shall see and
shall not preceive" — (Matthew 13:14). When
John says that the soldiers "saw", he means that they surmised. For no
modern-day stethoscope was used to verify death; nor did anyone touch
his body or feel his pulse before concluding that "he was dead
already". I see in the word "saw" another step in God's plan of rescue.