The Passion

By Dorothy Porter

I just went to see the movie The Passion of Christ. What a sacrifice Jesus Christ made for all of us! When He was scared He prayed to His Father in the Garden of Gethsemane. It was His determination, discipline, and willingness to please His Father that helped Him endure the lash of the whip and the falls along the way while carrying the heavy weight of the cross to Calvary. When He fell down He got up with the inner support of the Holy Spirit and a stranger, Simon of Cyrene, who supported Jesus’ end goal of carrying the cross to Calvary where He would be crucified. Jesus knew He had to complete this journey for the weight of the cross represents the many sins of mankind that were forgiven with His crucifixion. He also wanted to endure this journey to rise up on the third day to be with His Father in Heaven. So for me the title of the movie, The Passion of Christ, was fitting.

Jesus not only had passion to complete His journey, the passion reached Simon as well. Simon did not want to help Jesus carry the cross because Simon didn’t want to get involved with the troubles in the street. From Simon’s viewpoint the trouble with the soldiers in the street was a condemned criminal was simply being punished by crucifixion. Simon defended Jesus when the soldiers beat Jesus and not only picked up Jesus’ cross (the sins of mankind) when Jesus fell but Simon also tried to carry Jesus with the cross many times when Jesus barely had the strength to hang on to the cross as they walked up that treacherous hill to Calvary. While I was watching the movie Simon reminded me that not only do we need to be passionate about our journey in life, we need to be passionately supportive of the Spiritual journeys of others as well. Being Christ-like is not just about feeding, clothing, and housing the poor. It’s also about Taking and Making the Time to truly take on the supportive role that the Holy Spirit and Simon passionately gave to Christ in His Spiritual walk to get to Heaven.

To summarize, since watching the movie I feel we all need to be more like Christ and Simon. We need to be more focused on the goal of getting to Heaven and the road that will have to be walked along the way. I say we because like Jesus and Simon, as Christians we’re all on this journey together. Therefore to live our lives with daily passion I feel we need to:

Pray until something happens. Pray not only for our own goals and Spiritual walk but also for the Spiritual journey of others.

Ask God for what we need and to help us Accept the fact that there are things that we cannot change. The Serenity Pray, “God grant me the serenity to accept the things that I cannot change and grant me the wisdom to know the difference.

Seek God first before making decisions to first determine His purpose for your life.

Success - Enjoy living in this world without becoming of the world! Jesus lived in this world as a man and enjoyed the fruits of the world that God placed here on earth for us to enjoy without becoming of the world, meaning consumed by greed, selfishness, jealousy, arrogance, etc..

Instruction – Read the Bible! After praying to God, let’s ask others for their life experiences to learn better ways to accomplish our goals. Respecting the views of others will help keep us from reinventing the wheel. Hopefully we’ll avoid making some of the mistakes that others made along their Spiritual journey to Heaven.

Open our minds to new possibilities of avenues to direct our passion. There are only so many hours in the day so we have to focus ourselves to use our time wisely.

Never give up on our goals and support one another in reaching our individual goals.

We have to have Christ’s determination, discipline, and willingness to meet our goals and to complete our Spiritual journey to Heaven. Like Christ we’ll fall along the way but we need to remember that’s part of our Christian journey. For me, it sometimes seems like I take two steps forward and I fall back one step. What a nuisance this is! For the longest time this used to anger me because I figured I didn’t have time for these problems to be occurring in my life. Then someone helped me recognize that it’s when I fall back, or down, that it’s my time to carry the cross and getting through this test of falling down and getting back up is symbolic of Jesus falling down through death and rising up on the third day. I use this symbolism to get through my crosses in life. There are tests that I have to pass to get to my end goal of seeing Jesus and God in Heaven. When my tests in life hamper my footsteps along the road I now realize it’s time for me to take a few deep breathes and refocus my energy, reshape my thinking, redefine my Spiritual walk, pray to seek God’s guidance, and then I’m ready to get back up on the road to move a few more steps forward toward my goal. I still have some work to do because the journey keeps changing. That’s why we have to pray for one another daily.

God bless you all and remember, PASSION, is a Gift from God that comes from the Holy Spirit within each of us!

Much Love,

Dorothy