During a recent bout of the flu I fell in my bathroom. I still don’t know exactly what happened, except I found myself face first on the floor between the tub and the cabinet. I was very relieved that I hadn’t hit my head on either. Still, my face quickly swelled and evidenced I’d hurt myself. Because I’m on blood thinners – and thank God for that – the effects were immediate: swollen eye and cheek and nasty bruising which has turned my face into a Brut Art canvas. I did go to the ER to be checked out and thankfully, the damage is cosmetic. I believe God’s angels “lifted me up” while I tumbled and fell, for the Lord saw my plight and protected me.

That was over two weeks ago. The healing is very slow and the bruising isn’t pretty. My vanity/pride makes me want to hide out from others but it t may take months to fully recover and I’ve been house-bound too long. God’s using this experience to wake me out of complacency.

I realize how utterly vulnerable we humans are. How in the world do we survive every day? The universe is hostile to us. Weather has become increasingly erratic with fire, super storms, wind and snow, rock slides and floods in every season. We imprison ourselves in thousand tons of steel every day and drive around blithely unaware of what larger eighteen-wheeler may be coming at us. My accident could have been deadly and tomorrow doesn’t promise any more security. Except in the Lord. The Psalms consistently remind us our mortal frames – that we are but dust, created from dust and a short breath away from returning to dust. I am not afraid, but suddenly I realize how precious and precarious life really is. There but for the grace of our Creator, I can easily become untethered from this spinning planet earth.

I realize how violence has become ho-hum, a mindset fostered by the media we support and seems to feed an unholy, unhealthy, unredeemed craving even in Christians. This last week, for example, I watched two movies in which the hero – and villain- Arnold S. – survives constant, brutal physical attacks, being blown up, shot at and assaulted -and there’s never a mark on him? It is so sanitized and unrealistic. If my three-second fall results in a battered face where are Arnold’s and Sly’s and Bruce’s in juries? Some of you may think this is just the movies, so what’s the big deal? The big deal is that I find myself in a society – and a heart condition- which is so bored, it resorts to cheering on the gladiators bashing each other to death. Are we any different from the Romans in the Coliseum entertained by voracious lions who tear helpless Christian prisoners to pieces? Our “ viewer participation” removes us from the direct violence through the filter of film but it does not lessen our participation. It marks our souls as we become increasingly desensitized to torture and violence. God who gives and takes away life, will not be mocked.

Finally, I think of Jesus and Calvary as He se His face toward Jerusalem, torment and death. There was nothing subtle about Roman torture. He was beaten with rods, scourged with bone-embedded whips, a crown of thorns was placed upon His head and finally He was barbarically crucified. Isaiah 53 gives us a true picture of what Jesus’ physical condition was: every mark on His body; every bruise; every disfigurement. His description of Jesus in Isaiah is heart breaking and difficult to read. If my fall left me bruised and hurt, Jesus mirrors the greater suffering He paid for our Fall, our transgressions on the cross.

He had no stately form or majesty to attract us,
no beauty that we should desire Him.
3He was despised and rejected by men,
a man of sorrows, acquainted with grief.
Like one from whom men hide their faces,
He was despised, and we esteemed Him not.
4Surely He took on our infirmities
and carried our sorrows;
yet we considered Him stricken by God,
struck down and afflicted.
5But He was pierced for our transgressions,
He was crushed for our iniquities;
the punishment that brought us peace was upon Him,