The shout

Lent is always a good time for us to rest and more importantly to reflect. Maybe this is why we call it “Holy Week” – seven days for us to purposely meditate and pray so that we can survive the 51 unholy ones.

I did a little research. The cross today adorn many a man’s and a woman’s neck as a nice piece of jewelry. What many people fail to understand is the fact that, during the early days, the cross symbolized a curse, and it was not something to be proud of. Mel Gibson, in his movie The Passion of the Christ, made it a little easier to grasp this idea of the cross.

The cross consisted of a perpendicular stake with a crossbeam either at the top of the stake or shortly below the top. The height of the stake was usually a little more than the height of a man. A block or a pin was sometimes driven into the stake to serve as a seat for the condemned person, giving partial support to his body. Sometimes, a step for the feet was also fixed to the stake.

Victims of crucifixion, usually severely scourged first, do not usually die until after two or three days. This is greatly determined by the presence or absence of the seat and the footrest. A person suspended at the hands with the use of cords or cords and nails (sometimes the feet are nailed also) loses blood pressure quickly and has an increased pulse rate. Total collapse due to insufficient blood circulation to the brain and the heart would follow shortly. If the victim is able ease his body weight onto the seat and the footrest, the blood could be returned to some degree of circulation in the upper part of his body. When it is desired to bring the torture to an end, the victim’s legs are broken below the knees with a club. It then becomes impossible for him to ease his weight, and the loss of blood circulation is accentuated. Coronary insufficiency follows shortly. The victim’s offense is usually broadcasted by a crier who precedes him to the place of execution. Sometimes, the offense is written on a tablet, which the condemned man carries himself. The cross in the olden days was a symbol of a curse. Today many a man and a woman use it to adorn their necks. This is the image of Friday.

But Sunday brings us to a different message.

As a young man, Chicago-based minister D.L. Moody was called upon suddenly to preach a funeral sermon. He hunted all throughout the four Gospels trying to find one of Christ’s funeral sermons, but searched in vain. He found that Christ broke up every funeral he ever attended. Death could not exist where He was. When the dead heard His voice they sprang to life. Jesus said, “I am the resurrection, and the life.”

And here is another story.

Margaret Sangster Phippen wrote that in the mid-1950s her father, British minister W. E. Sangster, began to notice some uneasiness in his throat and a dragging in his leg. When he went to the doctor, he found out that he had an incurable disease that causes progressive muscular atrophy. His muscles would gradually waste away, his voice would fail, his throat would soon become unable to swallow.

Sangster threw himself into his work in British home missions. He figured, he could still write and would have even more time for prayer. “Let me stay in the struggle Lord,” he pleaded. “I don’t mind if I can no longer be a general, but give me just a regiment to lead.” He wrote articles and books, and helped organize prayer cells throughout England. “I’m only in the kindergarten of suffering,” he told people who pitied him.

Gradually Sangster’s legs became useless. His voice went out completely. But he could still hold a pen, shakily. One Easter morning, just a few weeks before he died, he wrote a letter to his daughter. In it, he said, “It is terrible to wake up on Easter morning and have no voice to shout: ‘He is risen!’—but it would be even more terrible to have a voice and not want to shout.”

Don’t shout: “It’s back to work again tomorrow!”

It’s great to shout: “Christ is Risen!” 

(Francis Kong will speak on what successful entrepreneurs do differently and why. Attend the “Disciplines for Breakthrough Entrepreneurs” on April 24, 2010 at the Carlos P. Romulo Auditorium, RCBC Plaza, Makati. Call 996-4610 or visit www.iluvlearning.com to register.)