"Illumination...................."

Seeing as how there are no more than about four who visit this site with any frequency, I’m going to expound a bit farther on Tony’s prayer experience that he shared with us in class Wednesday evening. This was not a “Now I lay me down to sleep” declaration on his part. It may well have started out as a petition of some sort, but somewhere in its course he somehow stepped into His presence, becoming as one with Him, hanging on the Cross. If it was a vision, he was in the vision. He could actually feel the nails as if they were in his own hands and feet, his body identifying with the Savior’s and knowing all the pain of simply trying to breathe. His muscles cramped, his mouth dry; and yet worse than all else was that moment when he realized that connection with the Father had been severed. It was an extreme sense of loneliness, producing fear and testing faith. Then that walk into the bowels of the earth. None doubted the tale as told, indeed all of us pausing for a few seconds when he finished. This old man did not make any mention of his dream, though, preferring to speak with Tony afterward about something I’ve long believed. The phrase utilized in our room was “death penalty” and it’s pretty safe to assume most, if not all, of Christianity equates that with the physical demise of Christ, the crucifixion in its entirety. Where is there any explanation in that, however, other than “I should have been nailed to that tree”? Do not all of us yet face the assuredness of our own demise? On the other hand, if we, without dismissing the agony endured throughout the whole assassination, consider that point in time when He was voided of that inner connection known with His Father from birth, suffering what we have known from Adam’s transgression in order to take our walk into hell, “paying the price for our sins” begins to add up for me. Calvary becomes, rather than a religious doctrine upon which we claim possession of a “get-out-of-jail-free” card, a relationship restored and held accountable to us on Judgment Day, the Gospel takes on new perspective. There is no wish here, on my part, to throw away and forget any of the other details concerning Golgotha’s hill. It all figures into “the price He paid” that humanity, as a whole might be reconciled with its Creator; but “how shall we escape if we neglect” salvation’s most important piece of the puzzle?.......