Day 286 - Mark 7-8

ONE-YEAR JOURNEY OF THE BIBLE
Day 286 - Mark 7-8 (How to Save Your Life)
(To View Past Posts Click: http:/tonyvicreyes1-yearbible.blogspot.com/ )

"Whoever desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me.  For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake and the gospel's will save it.  For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul?  Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul?  For whoever is ashamed of Me and My words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of him the Son of Man also will be ashamed when He comes in the glory of His Father with the holy angels."  (Mark 8:34-38)

Like many other Bible teachers, I am guilty of having used modern-day analogies in attempting to explain the significance of the cross of Jesus Christ.  However, after doing a quick research on the historical barbaric practice of Roman crucifixion, I realized that any modern-day comparison or analogy to the cross actually does grave injustice to it.

Before Jesus was crucified, He was flogged by Roman soldiers (and that was after He was spit on, beaten and mocked by the High priest and members of the Temple rulers).  If you watched the movie The Passion of the Christ, you would have an idea of the flogging of Christ; but even the flogging cannot come close to what our Lord suffered for hours during His journey to Calvary carrying His cross upon His shoulder.

The Romans perfected the practice of crucifixion as a form of torture and capital punishment to produce a slow and agonizing death with maximum pain and none has come close to it even today.  The condemned (yes, Jesus was condemned, not for Himself, but for our own sins) was probably naked.  His hands and feet were nailed to the cross.

Insects would burrow into His open woulds, eyes, ears and nose, and birds of prey woud tear at these sites.  Moreover, it was customary to leave the corpse on the cross to be devoured by predatory birds. When the condemned was thrown to the ground on his back, in preparation for crucifixion, His scourging wounds would be torn open again and contaminated with dirt.

His damaged nerves would produce excruciating bolts of fiery pain in His arms and legs.  Adequate exhalation would require lifting His body by pushing up on the feet and by flexing the elbows and shoulders.  However, this manuever would place the entire weight of the body on the bones in the feet and would produce searing pain.

Furthermore, the lifting of His body would also painfully scrape His scourged back against the rough wooden post.  As a result, each respitatory effort would become agonizing and tiring, further reducing the oxygen levels in the blood and lead eventually to asphyxia.  If the condemned is still alive after the alloted time set by the executioners, the bones on His legs would be broken.  In our Lord's case, however, the Bible records that He died before the soldiers could break His legs, thus fulfilling the prophecy about the suffering Messiah that not one bone on His legs will be broken (Psalm 34:20).

When Jesus told His discples to carry their cross, they were not thinking at all about a quick and easy death such as a lethal injection or electric chair today.  They understood that Christ was calling them to a most difficult and painful journey.  

Jesus further explained in our text above what He meant by carrying one's cross.  He said that whoever decides to save their life by not dying to their own will and entire self will lose their souls, but those who decide to lose their lives for the sake of Christ and the gospel will save their own souls.  

He went on to say, "what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul?  Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul?"  In other words, Jesus was trying to show them the utter foolishness of a person trying to save his life by living it his way, as Sinatra says in his song, and finding out in the end that he had paid his foolish decision with his own soul punished for eternity in hell.

Finally, Jesus includes all those who are ashamed to be associated with His as a disciple or true follower among those who will lose thier souls because of their refusal to die to self.  He said that He too will be ashamed of them when they have to face Him on His great white throne of judgement (Revelation 20).

Are you ready to carry your cross and follow Jesus?  Doing so would mean that you will die to your self once and for all and continuously deny yourself everything that goes against the commandments of Christ. Remember, the alternative to saving your "life" would be losing your own soul to hell.