Make It Stop!
by Lindsey Hanekom
Reading the story of the crucifixion of Jesus is deeply unpleasant in many ways. But the pain, anguish and suffering began well before His death on the cross. Jesus knew what lay before Him, and He tried to prepare Himself and His disciples for the upcoming times.
The betrayal kiss, the arrest, the beatings, the lashings, the trials, the mocking, the isolation, the impending excruciating death were all laid out for Him to endure. In this place of extreme stress at what was to come, He prayed, “Take this cup of suffering away from me.” Even Jesus wasn’t immune to the most human response to suffering, “Make it stop!”
But there was no stopping this. He was to endure to the very end.
As Jesus was going through His suffering, so too were His family and His disciples. I can’t imagine how confusing the whole situation must have been for them all. This was Jesus, the Messiah. Why is He dying? Sometimes I wonder if they kept thinking that this won’t happen. It will all stop. God Himself will intervene. But God didn’t.
Many of us will relate to the deep cry of, “Make it stop!” and wonder why God isn’t intervening. Maybe you are going through something like that even now, where confusion and pain are so strong that you can’t understand why God doesn’t just do something.
But what we learn from Jesus is how to endure through the suffering.
We can be real about how we feel, asking Him to stop, but also yielding to His better way, just as Jesus did when He said, “Yet not my will but Yours.”
We can ask the question, “Why?” but also be comfortable with not receiving an answer, just as Jesus did when He called out to God from the cross and heard no reply.
We can constantly walk in forgiveness of those who are causing the suffering, just as Jesus did as He hung to die.
We can continue to do His work, even in the depths of pain and suffering, just as Jesus did with the thief on the cross.
Lindsey Hanekom Lindsey has worked at all of our UK centres over the years and has settled at Ellel Scotland with her husband, Johann and their two young children, Kyle and Zoe. As part of the Leadership Team at Ellel Scotland, Lindsey has a heart for the deeply broken as she oversees the prayer ministry and is an established and passionate teacher with Ellel. In her spare time, Lindsey enjoys the natural world, particularly the ocean, and is trained as a specialist medic to assist stranded and injured marine mammals.
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