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Well, Spring has sprung!  

The Bartlett Pears are popping, the Dogwoods are blooming, and the Wisteria smells heavenly.  

My husband and I drove up to the lake, and it was so nice.  

No, the bluebonnets are not quite out, nor the Indian Paint Brushes, or the Buttercups, but the pollen is in full force.  

I had black rubber boots on and by the time we left, they were yellow.  

I often wondered what it looked like in Jerusalem when Jesus died.  It was in the Spring and I always pictured a drab, dead, desert with lots of rocks.  

If you look on-line for pictures during Jesus crucifixion, that’s exactly what you’ll find.  Drab, dreary pictures of rock and stone and a few green spaces.  

I noticed the birds are also out in full force around our house.  Some of their chirping at 2 a.m. can be quite annoying.  

I yell at my husband entirely too much.  He’s a great guy, always supportive, but he has a lot of faults! LOL!  Obviously, or I would not be yelling at him. My husband loves birds, so I would nudge him at 2 a.m. so he could enjoy the chirping as well.  

I felt like the girl in the movie “Failure to Launch” who shot the Blue Jay with a BB gun.  No, I did not shoot the chirping bird, but at 2 a.m., I felt like it.  

No matter how annoying the bird is, my husband would never allow anyone to kill a songbird.  

I think of all the small and big inconveniences that I go thru, that I grip about, that bothers me, and then I think about Jesus hanging on a cross, in a drab, ugly setting.  It really puts my thought process in perspective.  

Normally on Easter Sunday, my husband and I let all the people who only go once a year to church, have our spot.  

And when I say, “have our spot”, I mean we go to the lake.  We usually visit a church there.  

The Pastor at the lake, probably thinks we are one of the ones that only attend once a year.  LOL!  

Did you know that Britannica says that Golgotha means skull-shaped, hill?  I looked at the pictures on-line, and I don’t see the skull shape, so I’m unsure why they call it that, unless the shape has worn, over the years.  It has been about 2000 years, so that could happen.  

It is believed that the weight of the cross that Jesus carried to his crucifixion, was over 300 pounds.  The horizontal bar known as the patibulum had a weight of between 75 and 125 pounds.  

Some believe that this is the only part of the cross that was carried.  

I always ask my husband or son to go get the groceries out of the car for me.  Really, 75 to 125 pounds and I can’t carry a few groceries? Hmmm.  

It is presumed that Jesus carried the cross 2 miles from the Praetorium to the traditional location to Golgotha, as the crow flies.  Do you see what I’m doing here?  I’m feeding you facts about Jesus’s crucifixion.  

Pastor’s every year (and more) preach about Jesus dying on the cross ever Easter.  

Why do they do that.  We all know what happened.  

Because we need reminding what a horrible ordeal that Jesus went thru, in order to calm God’s anger against our evil nature.  

That’s why Jesus ask us to take Communion – to remind us what that sacrifice meant.  

Jesus gave us salvation and healing by His massive suffering.  

I know the Coronavirus has postponed us from meeting corporately at Church, but please don’t forget to thank God and Jesus every day, for what we have.  

Freedom from Satan, freedom from sin, freedom to have God’s grace and a free salvation.  

All we have to do is ask.

 

Karen Y. Stevens is the founder of Orange County Writers Guild