Shadows

I've been thinking about this topic since Easter, but have been occupied with other things in my post work time. Fortunately it's not something that's time sensitive, quite the opposite in fact.

Shadows are something that follow each of, in the direction away from light. Yes, I know that's a pretty obvious fact.

Shadows are also something that some people live in. Whether it be the shadow of family legacy or a dream in this respect it seems to be negatively regarded.

And there is also the shadows in which things are kept secret. Hidden away from people for reasons that only the one living in such a way can understand, if even they could understand it.

But the shadow that I've been thinking about is at best only partially related to those options, it's the shadow of the Cross.
All 7 billion persons on the earth at present and all the billions of people who have lived through time live in the same shadow.

Living under the shadow of a torture device. One of the most inhumane pieces of equipment ever devised by man. Where a person is nailed with stakes to pieces of timber and forced to suffocate to death over a period of hours and often many more then 2 hours.

Yet it is the second most hopefully thing devised by man, because of Jesus. The first being the tomb and more specifically Jesus' empty tomb.

But people don't wear tomb necklaces or have empty tombs tattooed on their bodies or placed as sticker on vehicles. All those things are true of the Cross. It is the symbol our salvation, of the shedding of the priceless blood of a perfect man.

I've met people who had cross symbols yet claimed hatred of God and Christianity. It is a symbol stitched into the world. Unavoidable in creation, heck there's even a part of space that very much resembles a Cross. It's everywhere.

We all live in the shadow of that symbol, that device. By choice or in adamant contention to it doesn't matter, except for eternally. Not to mention that flippantly because eternity is vastly more important then the 60 - 90 years that most people have on Earth.

But it doesn't matter the stance that people take toward Jesus and the Cross, the shadow of it looms over each of us, terrible yet stained with Hope. Shadows can be used to hide or can follow us through life but the shadow of the Cross is unavoidable. And I for one am thankful for it!