As a sheep before its shearers is silent, so He opened not His mouth. Isaiah 53:7

In reflecting on yesterday’s Catch about Jesus praying in the garden, Toni, one of our MemberPartners commented, “Jesus had more courage than any of us could possibly imagine.”

I was shocked. In all my knowledge and reflection about the last days of Jesus leading up to his death, I had never thought about courage, but as soon as I read her comment, I knew it was the right word. Why I never thought of it, I’m not sure. Maybe it had something to do with the meekness and humility with which Jesus endured the mockery and brutal punishment leading up to His death. We usually think of courage as exemplified by great physical strength, but the courage Jesus manifested was all incredible emotional and spiritual courage. Courage is what takes you through your fear. Jesus had already resolved through His prayers in the garden, that He would go through with this, and so He did. And it took incredible courage.

My favorite scene from Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ is when Jesus is struggling up the road to Golgotha with the cross on his back, He sees His mother in the crowd and says to her (my paraphrase), “Look Mom; I’m making everything new!”

Of course nothing looks new at that moment — only bloody pain and sorrow and humiliation. But Jesus saw something different. He saw through to what His courage was making possible — and that was entirely new — a virtual new world filled with people with new lives, made possible by what He was accomplishing and would finish in the next few hours.

So when you think about the passion this weekend, think about the courage of Jesus. And when you have a barrier in front of you that will take courage to go through, do what Jesus did, and look through the barrier to the other side. The other side of the cross is where everything is new.