Jesus Never Defended Himself

It is Good Friday and I have such a “heavy” feeling inside me. I think I haven’t quite recovered from watching “The Passion of the Christ” last night. It always leaves me emotionally drained.

While I always gain something new every time I see it, one particular thing that really stood out to me last night was how Jesus never defended Himself. It started in the Garden when they came to arrest Him. It carried on when they began to beat and mock Him.

Then on the cross they called out that He should be able to save Himself. He couldn’t possibly be a king, could He, if He wasn’t able to come down from that cross.

All I kept thinking to myself was how often I try to defend myself. I hate when people think something of me that isn’t true. It’s something I find impossible to let go of.

A couple years ago when I was working as a preschool teacher, a 4-year-old girl accused me of roughly pulling her by the arm. I was absolutely horrified that she had said this. I knew she had it wrong and that if it even did happen, it was at the hands of someone else. I knew that I never touched her.

But when my boss came to me and told me about the accusation, I immediately went into defense mode. When it appeared as if she didn’t 100% believe me, I got upset and started to cry.

In the end, I think my boss did come to realize that I didn’t do it. But the mom, who refused to discuss it with me and had her daughter transferred to another group, obviously went on to believe I had done this.

Oh how I wanted so badly to declare my innocence to her face. It bothered me so much that I lost sleep and felt sick to my stomach. The idea that I would be accused of something untrue was just sickening. So because I couldn’t defend myself to the mother who chose to ignore me, I went around defending myself to others.

You know sometimes that almost makes you look worse. It draws more attention and well, as I thought about the humbleness of Jesus and all that He endured, I realized how much I want to be like that.

Some things we just need to keep silent and know that if we are right with God, then all is well. When all is well in our soul, then we don’t need to defend ourselves.