Is it nothing to you?

“Is it nothing to you, all you who pass by?
Look around and see. Is any suffering like my suffering
that was inflicted on me, that the Lord brought on me in the day of his fierce anger? Lamentations 1: 12

I am a big fan of John Stainer’s Crucifixion and he uses this verse from Lamentations, which was really written about the fall of Jerusalem, to show the indifference of the crowd on the day of Jesus’ crucifixion. The most important event in history was happening before a largely uncaring and even mocking crowd.  According to Luke people watched, rulers sneered, soldiers mocked and even one of the criminals flung insults at him.

I wondered if they had realised what was really happening, would they have repented?  Well in the days following Pentecost a very large number did. Most of them would have heard if not seen Jesus’ crucifixion and cut to the heart by Peter’s words, they turned to Jesus (Acts 3:41, 4:4 and 6:7). But on the day, apart from the already believing disciples, only a condemned criminal and a Roman centurion realised who Jesus was.

I am cut to the heart by what Jesus did for me on the cross yet for years I too was indifferent to him, even though I knew all about it. I was not ignorant of Jesus’ death and resurrection and what it meant but I ignored his pleas.  Jesus however never gives up. Till our dying day he cries to us ‘O come unto me, O come unto me, for why should you die?’ the words used by John Stainer.

It spurs me to renew my efforts in prayer, by friendship, witness and words to tell people the magnitude of God’s amazing grace to each one of us. I want to be more effective and I think one of those ways is through miracles and healings. Time and again people believed because of what they saw Jesus and his disciples doing because these things pointed to the kingdom of heaven is near.

Let’s be encouraged to press on to being vessels used by God to bring his good news, the Gospel to an indifferent yet dying world.