Carpentry skills

This week's study comes from our next verse in I Peter (although indirectly):

“He himself bore our sins” in his body on the cross, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness; “by his wounds you have been healed.”  (I Peter 2:24)

These words struck me....."His body on the cross."
I had an immediate mental image of Christ's body in contact with the wood of the cross. I couldn't get it out of my mind. I'm sure that the wood of the cross was very rough. The pieces would have been rough-hewn; they would not have smoothed or sanded the wood used for a cross to execute a criminal.
The Great Carpenter's skin against terribly rough, splintered wood.
Join me this week as we talk about that Great Carpenter.....

Like so many things in God's wonderful creation, wood has been used, abused, and then ultimately used again.... In Bible times, it wasn't beautiful furniture most of the time, or decorative items for the home, but mostly plows, yokes for oxen, ladders, doorways, and things like that. (It would be something very unusual to see a carpenter take time out of his workday to create an intricate box or item for someone he loved, or for a rich patron.) The Temple walls were made of wood, and there was wood used in the sacrifice of millions of animals in the worship of God. Although it was fairly rare in the land of Israel, it was probably more abundant then, than it is there today.

This blessing of God that was so useful, though, was also abused. It was the tree that the snake spoke to Eve from, and persuaded her to rebel against God. It was wood that many carpenters grabbed and turned into idols. (There are several references describing the craftsman making an idol in Isaiah, if you want to look those up.) You would think that the irony would sink in, as the worker took the scraps from making the idol and tossed them into the fire to keep warm, but evidently not! Wood was used in other "bad" ways, too, for the spear that King Saul wanted to impale David with, to the gallows that Haman erected for Mordecai.....

But God overcame the abuse and used wood in ways to rescue mankind. Noah's ark was wood; Moses' staff was wood; even the Ark of the Covenant was wood covered in gold. That was the place of God's presence here on earth. When the Israelites complained and the Lord sent poisonous snakes, it was wood where God instructed Moses to hang the bronze snake, so that anyone bitten could look and be cured (Numbers 21).

Hundreds of years later, God sent His Son -- He was laid in a manger made of wood. And as He grew up here on earth, He was in contact with wood every day, as He was the son of a carpenter. I'm certain that He was very familiar with, and very comfortable with the tools of that trade. Then one day the carpenter shop closed, for it appears from the Bible that Joseph passed away, and Jesus went out to preach, tell parables, work miracles, heal diseases, and train His disciples. He didn't work on wood any more. He was progressing toward the day when wood would work on Him.

The very last day of His life, Jesus was in contact with wood. It was the only solid substance that He was in contact with, the last few hours of His life. When He was a carpenter, his palms held the tools and touched the wood, working to bring out the best of the wood's potential. Now His hands were nailed to the wood so that the backs of His hands were against the rough surface -- working to save our souls. The carpenter didn't pound nails into the wood; nails were pounded into His hands.
The carpenter Who had been so comfortable and at ease working in the shop was not comfortable on the cross. He was there to pay the price of our sins. The cross wasn't burned to make a fiery offering, but it was an altar just the same -- the altar on which the Lamb took away the sins of the world.

I still get all geeky with words, and I thought it was significant that on five occasions, when the "Epistles" of the Bible refer to the cross, it's not called a cross; it's not called a tree; it's called wood in the Greek. If you look at the literal Greek translation, here is what you see:

Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us, for it is written: “Cursed is everyone who is hung on wood." (Galatians 3:13)

That one refers to Deuteronomy 21, where at the end of the chapter it says that someone whose body is hung on a pole (for murder) is under a curse.
Then Peter says this (if you change the word to the literal Greek):

“He himself bore our sins” in his body on the wood, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness; “by his wounds you have been healed.” (I Peter 2:24)

Wood was created by God. It has been used for good purposes, and it has been abused and used for bad purposes, too. God used wood as the framework of our salvation. We've been healed by Jesus' wounds, and the devil has been overcome.

This week we'll look deeply into this concept from Peter's letter.