It’s true. I really was stabbed by a sword the other day.
The wound cut deep. It bled.
Never mind that I did it to myself, by accident, with a movie replica from Lord of the Rings, while I was trying to mount it on my wall. Never mind that it was a little pinprick inflicted by the tip of the sword just above my knee (sigh… no arrow to the knee jokes, please).
Never mind that two bandaids did the trick.
The point is, I have a sword wound. And it throbbed that night while I lay in bed. How cool is that?
Here I am, pathetically trying to make a mountain out of a molehill, when another dude had the opposite problem: The Black Knight from Monty Python’s Holy Grail. Here’s the clip (FYI, there’s some colourful language):
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zKhEw7nD9C4&list=PLF257E869E4B677E4[/youtube]
A classic line, that is: “It’s just a flesh wound.” The poor guy is legless, armless, rendered completely powerless. What’s his final word? “Let’s call it a draw.”
A draw. Riiiight. Because after all, it’s just a flesh wound. I think this is how Jesus must feel when we resist his work in our lives. Especially when we make a mess.
“Let me help you,” he says.
“Nay, ’tis just a flesh wound.”
“Uh, flesh wounds are the most serious kind. Your sin is killing you. Let me help you.”
“No, I’m good. I don’t want to give in.”
“But…”
“Tell you what… Let’s call it a draw.”
Why? Why do we resist? When confronted with our own human frailty, sin and weakness, our own bloody mistakes, why do we stand in flagrant denial to the point of utter ridiculousness?
Jesus lived the perfect life we could never live… so he could be the perfect sacrifice we could never offer… to cover sins we could never pay for… to defeat death and the devil, enemies we could never beat ourselves… so he could offer us a new life and a new self we could never create for ourselves… and prepares an eternal home for us we could never have made our own arrangements for.
But us?
Naw, I’m good, Jesus. ‘Tis just a flesh wound.
Face palm.