Flourishing Life

“There’s no traffic jam on the extra mile.” – Anonymous

Christians have been observing Holy Week for hundreds of years. We memorialize Jesus’ journey to the cross and his resurrection. We set this time aside for focused devotion to God, remembering his acts of salvation through Jesus Christ.

This Holy Week, in addition to the sense of repentance that we feel in light of Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross, we may want to take it a step deeper. As we examine our lives, we realize we have plenty of sin of which to repent. We need to do this, but what if we turn our penance positive?

Roman law demanded Jews to carry the pack of a soldier for one mile. Jesus, like so many other things, ups the ante, so to speak. He encouraged his fellow Jews to not resist a Roman soldier, but carry his pack an additional mile. How this must have irked some of his more revolutionary-minded followers!

God first loved us, so we love others. Some contemporaries of Jesus hearing this for the first time must have thought he was a bit mad. But this is exactly the kind of selfless ethic the King who came to serve taught. Go the extra mile, turn the other cheek, love your enemy, judge not, take up your cross daily, etc.

This Holy Week, let’s follow Jesus’ lead and live lives of holy love, serving people God brings into our path so they see Jesus in us.

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Photo by Lukas Hartmann: Pexels