The Pride of the Cross

I am so proud. I am so competitive. I have to win every game I play, every race I run, every event that even has the smallest component of competition. One time, I flipped a chess table...

This is a problem. This is a problem that only we as humans know, and we know it very well.

I can’t even refrain from arguing back in a Facebook debate. When someone corrects or teases me, I have to make it my dying mission to prove them wrong. Far too often, I seek out the opinions of others and resolve in my heart that they are mine to mold. Even when a fellow Christian lovingly and constructively corrects me on a behavior or thought process, I get hurt and refuse to correct myself. If this happens with you, please recognize that this is pride. If me breaking that news to you was offensive, you may need to take inventory of the pride in your own heart.

Fortunately, there was no pride in the Cross, as this article so misleadingly tells you. I titled it this because I literally cannot fathom a Savior with pride in His heart. If Jesus had pride, I am wholeheartedly convinced that the Cross would not have happened. Perhaps this article’s subtitle should be, “Or Lack Thereof”.

Need expansion? Let’s start by throwin’ it back to Psalm 22. This entire chapter is a Psalm of David that actually prophesies the death of Jesus, down to the details of the condition of His body post-beating but pre-death as He was hanging there minutes away from taking His not-so-last breath. So, it’s not like Jesus was born completely ignorant of the mission God intended for Him. He lived His entire approximately thirty-three years knowing that He had a terrible, but necessary assignment.

You can see how it would be frustrating to be ridiculed by people for thirty-three years knowing that it was your skin saving their lives. Well, at least it would be frustrating for my human nerves. I would lose my chill after about the second person telling me I wasn’t the Messiah, if I knew completely well that I was in fact the Messiah by the declaration of the Lord of All Existence. (I am not equating myself to Jesus, just empathizing with His emotions in Biblical times.)

I mean, the treatment that Jesus bit His tongue through is remarkable. As the soldiers were beating Him, He was blindfolded. They would kick Him and say things like, “If You’re really the Messiah, then You could see through the blindfold and tell me who’s kicking You right now” and “The real Messiah could throw off these chains and blindfold and stop this beating” and “If You’re really the Son of God, free Yourself and remove Yourself from the Cross”.

The honorable part of this is that Jesus could’ve easily been like, “Yea, I have a blindfold, but I know that Jim is kicking me and that Steve is standing right over there and by the way, the chain is laying on the ground unhinged.” He had every ability to be like, “Nah, I’m jumping off this Cross. See ya, losers.” Better yet, He could’ve said, “Go ahead and kill Me. I’ll be back in three days to prove you wrong.” But, that’s not our Savior.

This is exactly why the Name of Jesus and the adjective of “prideful” are non-synonymous. He is amazing and holds the world in His capable Hands without being prideful about it.

He knows His abilities and doesn’t boast. And that is what makes Him powerful.