“To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven: A time to be born, and a time to die. A time to weep, and a time to laugh; A time to get, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away; A time to rend, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak; A time to love, and a time to hate; a time of war, and a time of peace.”
Verses from Ecclesiastes 3:1-8

Have you ever had the experience of waiting for something dreaded that you know is going to happen? Let me give you an example. You have an appointment at the doctor’s office. It is booked for months in advance. You mark it on your calendar, and you try to forget it, but every time you look at the calendar you think of that dreaded date when the doctor will examine you. Or perhaps it is a trip to the dentist that you know is coming up. You think of it and wait for it anticipating that it is not going to be a pleasant experience. Another instance is perhaps an upcoming examination at school or university. It is an inevitable fact. But not one you like to think about. Yet you do. You have to. It is always before you.

Well, stop for a moment. Think of this. Jesus is the Son of God. He sits at the right hand of His Father, the King of Heaven. He wears a Crown. But He gives all that up to come to earth as a humble baby, a baby that can do nothing, a baby dependant on His parents for everything. He grows as a Child, under the authority of His earthly parents. He has to (and does willingly) obey their commands. He no doubt helps his father, Joseph, in the carpenter shop, following his instructions. At twelve He has matured enough to know that He must be about His Heavenly Father’s business and dares to step out on His own, not meaning to upset His earthly parents. As an obedient child He accepts their reprimand. He continues to grow to adulthood. At last, at thirty years of age, He steps into the world and lives among the people, blended in with the crowds of men and women walking the roads. He looks little different from most of the men His age.

But all the while—for thirty-three years—He knows what is coming up. He knows that He will not live a long and prosperous life here on earth. He knows that the inevitable is coming. He needs no calendar to tell Him that He has an appointment to keep in a few short years. He knows there is not way out—no way, that is, that He will take.

He was a man, subject to the thoughts of a man, the pain of a man, the reason of a man. Do you ever stop to think what must have often gone through His mind when He awoke in the morning? Each day He lived on earth He knew He was one day closer to the inevitable—that appointment that He must keep.

He asks His Father in heaven if there is any other way to accomplish what He was sent to earth for, other than the ordeal He is about to face. Mark 14:36 and Matthew 26:39. The burden seems almost greater than He can bear. The cup is too bitter for Him to drink.

For Christ it was the INEVITABLE. He knew it. He knew that the inevitable for Him was His death on the cross—death, not because of His sins, but because of the sins of the whole world, because of our sins, because of MY sin.

Since Christ faced His Inevitable, so can you, with His help.

© Helen Dowd