TARA CUTLAND GREEN
Diamond Cross
April 2018
Acrylic on canvas

When we are feeling rejected, anxious, embarrassed, in pain, not good enough or lonely, we can do things that aren’t great - for us or others. We may detach from our feelings or cover them over via distractions, eating or other pleasures; and so neglect to care for our soul-needs. Or we restrict our lives to avoid triggers, lash out to control others, or become people-pleasers to feel safe; all at a cost, all killing off some aspect of ourselves or our relationships.

Not so Jesus.

He suffered humiliation, injustice, rejection, betrayal, accusation, abandonment and hellish physical pain. Instead of misusing his power to escape it, he accepted this emotional, spiritual and physical torture. It had a purpose. “Because his heart was focused on the joy of knowing that you would be his, he endured the agony of the cross and conquered its humiliation” (Hebrews 12:2, TPT).

Being love, knowing love and trusting his good, divine dad made him stronger than fear, malice and pain. Thus, he overcame death and darkness. His life and love was proved unquenchable, unstoppable radiance.

Diamonds - brilliant refractors and dispersers of light - are forged through tortuous levels of heat and pressure*. Similarly, via the love he brought to the cross, Jesus transformed the deepest pain, darkness, separation and death into joy, light, intimacy and life, exuding a rainbow spectrum of hope.

*The journal Nature gives the recipe for making a diamond as being something like:
1. Bury carbon dioxide 100 miles into Earth.
2. Heat to about 2,200 degrees Fahrenheit.
3. Squeeze under pressure of 725,000 pounds per square inch.
4. Quickly rush towards Earth’s surface to cool.