Lenten Reflection - Day 8, March 9

When the centurion saw what had taken place, he praised God and said, “Certainly this man was innocent.”
Luke 23:47

Additional Reading: 2 Corinthians 5:14-21

He only saw him die and yet the centurion was convinced of the righteousness of Jesus – his “right-relatedness” to God the Father and to the people he came to love and to save. He never saw him heal the sick or raise the dead or cleanse the leper or give sight to the blind, but he was convinced.

What would it take to convince us? We may well already believe in Him, but we find that we live so little for him. We may well have a history of relationship bith him, but perhaps little real knowing of him in the manner that changes us with a convinced sense of never being the same again. We may well profess to love him, but a coolness has stolen Love’s fervor. We cannot see by faith what the centurion saw in person.

So Easters come and go and life piles up and we wonder when our full devotion to him will kick in or when I will understand, at the level of personal everyday experience, what I hear so many others talk about with such certainty and such convinced clarity. If the cernurion could speak across the years to you and to me, he would probably say, “Look at that cross and the one it holds. He is there for you and me. Let it grip your heart today.”

Prayer: Kind Father, today I humble myself all over again and look to the cross of Christ for a fresh reminder of what it means to be loved by you. May the true righteousness he gave me by faith on that day transform me this day. Amen.