"The Replacement"

​The Replacement
 
Hello Light Global Missions Friends and Family!  With today’s blog entry, I share a little about what has been happening since the new year started.  I continue to plan for a future “Prayer Train Across America”, Bible study and Mission events but have pushed both back while I recover. Here’s what’s going on.
 
After suffering for almost a decade with bilateral knee pain caused by osteoarthritis, I finally made the decision to have knee re-placement surgery.  My date was set for March 11th and I began a full regimen of doctor’s appointments, clearances, exercises and dietary changes in prep for the “big day”.  Deep inside, I was constantly praying and believing for a miracle. I daydreamed that I would come in for a preoperative x-ray only to find that my knee was miraculously restored.  All would be in awe and celebrate such a miraculous move of God. The reality however was that I would have to go through the full and painful process of a major robotic assisted surgery followed by weeks and months of still more painful therapy while re-training how to walk as a person who was no longer bow-legged and pigeon toed. 
 
An experience I had at therapy today and this past week’s celebration of Holy Week made me see Good Friday, and the glorious resurrection that followed quite differently than I had before.  It has made me see how sometimes, taking the painful path is the right answer. While doing one of my exercises, the therapist pointed out that I was swinging my leg from the hip instead of bending at the knee.  “You’re trying to avoid the pain” he told me. “You’re trying to circumvent it because you know it will be painful, but you have to align yourself to go through the pain.  It’s the only way you will correct what’s wrong and avoid further damage.”
 
Have you ever wondered why Jesus didn’t just show up on crucifixion day or even why He had to come and suffer at all?  Couldn’t he have just miraculously erased all sin and start us over at the “factory setting”?  Why come as a baby, be hunted as a child by Herod, be mocked and ridiculed by scribes, pharisees and at times even his own family?  Why go through the pain of the lash on his back and the nails in his hands and feet?  Why be pierced in the side and wear a crown of thorns?  It was because the process was completely necessary to set us all straight. 
 
Had Jesus at any moment taken a crooked path, If he varied from what was already recorded by the prophets and ordained by God, we would still be in our sin and lost eternally.  He had to take the painful path. He had to be perfect and holy to take the place of a fallen and sinful human race. Jesus was at one point tempted to take the easier road.  He prayed three times in the garden of Gethsemane to his heavenly Father, asking if there was an alternate route but always ended his prayer surrendering to the painful but perfect will of God for purchasing our redemption. (Matthew 26:39-44)
 
While my experience won’t redeem or save anyone, It certainly makes me appreciate in some small way the cost of choosing to endure temporary hardship for a greater outcome, a new knee.  Because Jesus aligned himself with pain and suffering, I and all the world can have the miracle of new life and eternal life with Christ.  He made our crooked path straight. Christ is our perfect replacement!