Out for a long run, trying to get to the river Ribble. Past the three standing stones, past the ruined manor house, through the stately abandoned gardens, over the motorway and past the ponds. The turning point was the massive beech tree at the side of the river. Dark and forbidding.

I was thinking about Jesus now starting his journey carrying his cross out of the city. It must have looked like the final stage, but he still had to have to conviction to get there because the cross lay up ahead. That hill awaiting his feet, how long since he had walked that hill, perhaps the same hill that Abraham walked when tested to sacrifice his son.

Mark 15:20
And when they had mocked him, they took off the purple robe and put his own clothes on him. Then they led him out to crucify him.

Jesus came as a servant king, and he modelled the way fro us to live. The soldiers tried to put their own idea of what a king looked like, and so did the Jews and that’s what angered them, when Jesus turned out to have an all together different idea of what a king should be. The turning point is the cross and when Jesus returns we will all bow our knee.

Dear Lord, humbled as we are that you forsook all power to endure the cross. We praise your name through our lives. Give us hope and we await your return in glory when you will once again show us the error of our ways. Amen.