I’m not sure what made me think of it just now, but I may as well write it down.
I remember years ago when I attended a Good Friday church service in Oregon, and a doctor came to speak about the medical perspective of Christ’s crucifixion. He told us that Jesus actually died of a broken heart, not from bleeding from His wounds or excruciating pain or other factors. Jesus must have been very strong physically.
The scriptures say that when He was pierced in the side by a soldier, blood and water gushed out. The visiting doctor said that for water to be mixed with his blood in this way, His heart had to have burst already. Otherwise, it would have been only blood that poured out.
People all around me started weeping into tissues and handkerchiefs and I quickly joined in. My heart broke thinking of how we wounded Him with our cruelty and our ignorance and our apathy. It made me feel so ashamed.
Remember those drops of blood on His forehead in Gethsemane? Those revealed the depth of His pain as He prayed for us in the garden. Even as a child, I understood it and whenever I considered my own pain, I remembered that bloody sweat on His brow. I understood that His sorrow was even greater than mine, and it gave me solace. I knew that His love towards me was beyond the grasp of my understanding.
It still gives me comfort today through all of my personal battles. I pray every day that I don’t break His heart again with my attitudes and actions.
OLIVE TWIST ©2012
Drifting into the Divine ~♥~ 