We all are familiar with this very fantastic heart touching verse In Galatians Chap 6 verse 14...
"God forbid that I should boast of anything but the CROSS of Our LORD JESUS CHRIST."
The Universal symbol of Christian faith is not a crib or manger but a Gruesome Cross. Yet many people are unclear about its meaning and cannot understand why Christ had to die. Cross is the centrality and the Cruciality of Christianity.
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| The Shadow Of Death (Holman Hunt) |
From Jesus' youth indeed even from his birth, the cross casts its shadow ahead of him. Holman Hunt in his famous painting entitled "The Shadow of Death" clearly illustrates this truth. It Depicts the inside of the Carpenter's shop in Nazareth. Stripped to the waist Jesus stands by a wooden trestle on which He has put down His saw. He lifts His eyes towards Heaven, and the look on his face in One of either pain or ecstasy or both. He also stretches, raising both arms above his Head. As he does so the evening Sunlight streaming through the open door casts a dark shadow in the form of a Cross on the wall behind him, where his tool- Rack looks like a horizontal bar on which His hands have been Crucified. The tools themselves remind Us of the fateful hammer and Nails.
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| The Shadow On the Wall |
In the Left foreground a woman kneels among the wood chippings , her hands resting on the chest in which the rich gifts of the magi are kept. We cannot see her face because She has averted it. But we know that she is Mary. She looks a startled (or so it seems) at her son's cross like shadow on the Wall.
His death was central to His Mission. "All that Christ was in heaven or on the Earth was put into what He did there. Christ is to Us just what His Cross Is. You do not understand Christ till You understand His Cross." [PT. Forsyth]. He who Understand the Cross alright, understand the Bible, he understands Jesus Christ.
(Source : from "The Answer" by Dr. D Joshua)
