Christmas Eve and The Passion of the Christ

For the first time in my life, I saw The Passion of the Christ tonight. This movie elicited a lot of feelings, from heartbreak to guilt to desperation. I'm trying to put my feelings into something that makes sense, so please bear with me.

To see the way that Jesus was brutalized just made the story so real. While I've heard that the beatings He received were violent, this gave such graphic imagery that I was devastated by what happened. I wanted to run out and take the cross from Him, because it wasn't His fault that He was being beaten, tortured, and crucified. It was on my behalf.

Because of His suffering on my behalf, the guilt of my sins weighs so heavily on my mind that I can't help but feel desperate to seek forgiveness. It breaks my heart that it was for my sins that Jesus had to be crucified.

Take this and realize that today is Christmas Eve, the night where we begin the celebration of the birth of Jesus. To contemplate that Jesus needed to be born into this world in order to save us, that He was born to die for our sins, that His resurrection was necessary for our faith to continue on into the future... Yet, just a few hours ago, my biggest concerns included what would come in the mail and what movie I would watch while killing time before getting ready to go to a late Christmas Eve service.

I'm still struggling to find words to explain the intensity of my feelings. The thing I wanted most this Christmas was to find out I am pregnant. (I'm not... the insurance paperwork isn't settled yet.) But to stop and think that a young woman gave birth to a child who would save the world with his life. She would have been a decade or more younger than I am now, which means that she would be a teenager. That comes with its own issues - being so young comes with increased risks to both mother and child. Not only was she young, but she wasn't married to Joseph yet; she was "engaged" (they didn't call it that back then, but it is the contemporary explanation.).

When Jesus began His ministry, he was about my age (I'll be 30 next summer.). When He was killed, He was only a few years older than I am now. That just makes it all the more real - knowing He was about my age when He began His ministry and that He wasn't all that much older than I am when He was crucified.

While I'm still looking forward to tonight's service at church, I am also struggling with my own humanity. I feel as though I am not worthy of what Christ did for me. (Yes, I realize that I really am not worthy.) I know that no matter how much I try to redeem myself under my own power, I cannot. I am struggling with allowing God to flow freely through me. I don't entirely know how to explain this, but when I allow God to speak through me, I'm left absolutely exhausted. When I pray for other people, especially when I'm laying hands on someone, it makes leaves me so drained that all I want to do is take a nap. The more I allow God to do through me, the more I feel emptied.

The intensity of the feelings I have right now is so high that I both fiercely believe and yet struggle to be open to the truth. I really feel exhausted and yet like I'm running on pure adrenaline. In so many ways, I almost wish that I was responsible for bearing the weight of my sins so that an innocent didn't have to endure what I deserve.