Immeasurable Cost

Here are some special credits. Welcome back to Hope for the Caregiver. This is Peter Rosenberger.

This is the program for you as a family caregiver. That is the Old Rugged Cross from my CD Songs for the Caregiver. I recorded that during communion at church in Nashville some years ago, and a friend of mine, Daniel Fisher, played violin on that, and it was just so extraordinary. You could hear some of the clanking around, the communion trees, people coughing, that kind of stuff. But I thought the performance that he brought to it, he's an exquisite violinist, is really quite breathtaking.

It's very moving. And I've got my pastor from Nashville for 20 years plus now, and he's still my pastor, will always be my pastor, my dear friend Jim Bachman. And every time I play that for him, he gets tears in his eyes, because he remembers when we did it live, and it was just a very moving time, and it's such a treat to play with musicians like that. So I put this as it was on the CD, and it's appropriate here for this weekend of Easter weekend, the Old Rugged Cross. So thank you for indulging me on that. I'm glad to have you with us.

Hopeforthecaregiver.com, Hopeforthecaregiver.com, if you want to be a part of the program. Speaking of that pastor, my friend Jim, I remember he called me up once, a couple years back, and he was burying his dog. Love that dog. It was very special.

I mean, you know how our dogs are to us. And they had a couple of wonderful golden retrievers, and this one, the first one had passed away, and now here's the second one. This dog was very close to Jim, and had been a source of great love to him through some tough losses, and some tough things that Jim went through, and he called me up after burying the dog, and I am blessed to count him as one of my dear friends. And so I treasure him sharing this moment with me, and I have permission to share this. And he said, you know, I hate death.

He said, I hate death. And I just listened to my friend for a few moments. We've together worked at many, many funerals. He has officiated the funeral, and I would play for them, of people that we care deeply about. And you know, when you're the pastor, you become very much involved in people's lives.

I saw this with my own father during some of the worst times of their life. But when you're a musician, you also are invited to participate in people's lives. And I've always taken it as a great honor to be asked to play at a funeral, and I try to make an effort if I possibly can.

Sometimes my life is a little bit crazy, but I do try to make an effort. And I found those times that Jim and I did these together were quite meaningful. And he trusted me at the piano to do things that would really not only be appropriate for a funeral, it's not hard to be appropriate for a funeral as far as music and hymns and so forth, but to be sensitive to where the family struggled. And then I would always listen to his sermons at the funeral, and they were deeply moving. And so here's a man who has spent a career, a lifetime as a minister, he's been a minister for about 40 years, so he's presided at a lot of funerals, and I've played at a lot of funerals. So we were not unfamiliar with the challenges, the heartache, the sorrows, the drama. And I listen to him with that context when he's saying he hates death, it's not just a one-time thing with his family, this is a lifetime of him having to look at people in the face as they struggled with the hardest question of all, as they faced death. And speak hope and speak God's comfort into that. And now he was on the phone with me saying, I hate death.

Then he added something that's never left me. He said, you know who hates death more? You know who hates it more than me?

More than any of us? He said, God hates death. He went on to say he hates it so much that he took it upon himself to provide a way to defeat death. And I can't help but think of that time when Jesus stood at the grave of Lazarus. John 11.38 shares that he was deeply moved and also that Jesus wept there. But some translation stated that Jesus was so moved that anger was welling up in him, anger at death. Now you're going to have to talk to theologians who are much wiser than me.

Whether or not that's accurate, but that's from what I've seen and studied. It was visceral for him. He hates death. Just weeks after standing at Lazarus' grave, what we will celebrate is Easter Sunday, tomorrow. Jesus indeed conquered death, but he did it at an immeasurable cost to himself.

In his book, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, C.S. Lewis gives such an amazing description of the drama and the heartache and the trauma that Jesus endured. Some say that it was won at Gethsemane, because that's when Jesus completely put his will into his Father's will to say, okay, I'm going to do this. I don't want it.

Please take it from me if you can, but if you can't, I get it. Not my will, but thine, and I'm going to do this. And he set his face like flint, for the joy before him he endured the cross. But in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, Lucy, one of the little kids, was concerned her brother had betrayed everybody.

And the evil character in the book was the white witch, and she had jurisdiction over that betrayal. And the young boy, his name was Edmund, his life was forfeit. And Lucy pled with Aslan, the great lion. She said, please Aslan, can anything be done to save Edmund? And Aslan replied, all shall be done, but it may be harder than you think.

That one phrase from Lewis still gets me. It captures the deep sorrow and pathos and pain that our Savior went through on our behalf. It's hard to wrap our minds around this.

In fact, I think it's impossible to wrap our minds around the magnificence and the magnitude of the cross. But it is what anchors us, when all else seems lost, to know that he took this on himself. You've often heard me say on this show that I have caregiver amnesia.

And I do. I have to go back and listen to my own program, I have to read my own book, I have to remind myself of these things that we talk about on this program. But that pales in comparison to the gospel amnesia that I have, which is far more important. And I have to be reminded of this great gospel, this great work that was done on our behalf. And I would be failing in my responsibilities and my privilege not to address this with clarity to my fellow caregivers and others to pierce through that fog, that fear, obligation and guilt that binds so many of us. Of what this means for us as believers, that we have hope.

We have hope as caregivers, not because of the work that we do, or how smart we are, how clever we are. We have hope because one said that all shall be done, but it was harder than we can imagine. And I'm sure you've all watched the Passion of the Christ, I try to watch it every Easter. You know I find myself as Jim Caviezel's portrayal of Jesus is so spot on and he's struggling up to the hill there. And I'm cheering him on because if he doesn't make it, I have to do it, and I can't do it.

He chose to do it because we can't. All shall be done, but it may be harder than you think. With your indulgence, I'd like to end this part of the broadcast with more of Daniel and I playing from that Sunday so many years ago. It was a medley of the Old Rugged Cross and Near the Cross, written by Fanny Crosby. And that second verse, particularly near the cross, a trembling soul, love and mercy found me, there the bright and morning star sheds its beams around me, and in the chorus, in the cross, in the cross, be my glory ever, till my raptured soul shall find rest beyond the river. So I'll cherish the Old Rugged Cross. So I'll cherish the Old Rugged Cross. So I'll cherish the Old Rugged Cross. So I'll cherish the Old Rugged Cross. Hey, this is Peter Rosenberger. Did you know that you can recycle used prosthetic limbs?

No kidding. We've been doing this at Standing With Hope since 2005. For six years, I did it myself out of our garage, and sometimes on colder nights, I'd sit by the fire in our den, and I'd be surrounded by a bunch of prosthetic legs that have come from all over the country, and I would disassemble them and store the feet, the pylons, the knees, the adapters, the screws, all those things that can be re-salvaged and repurposed to build a custom-fit leg. Then a wonderful organization in Nashville partnered with us to help take it out of my garage and my den and into a better system.

This is CoreCivic, CoreCivic.com. Now, they are the nation's largest owner of partnership correctional detention and residential reentry facilities, and they have a lot of faith-based programs, and I'm proud to say that Standing With Hope is one of those programs and has been now for over a decade. Inmates volunteer to help us disassemble those used prosthetic limbs. Reports show that inmates who go through faith-based programs are better equipped to go back into society, and the recidivism rate of returning back to prison is so low. They don't want to come back, and society doesn't want them to come back, and faith-based programs are a big part of that, and that's something that CoreCivic really believes in, and we are so thrilled that Standing With Hope is one of those programs. I remember the first time we started, an inmate looked at me and said, I've never done anything positive with my hands until I started doing this program with Standing With Hope. Another inmate told me, he said, I never even thought of people with disabilities until I started doing this, and it's an extraordinary partnership and very moving to see this. See, we can do so much with these materials, but a lot of family members have a loved one that passes away. They don't know what to do with the limb, they'll keep it in a closet, or sometimes even worse, they'll throw it away. Please don't let that happen. Please send it to us through Standing With Hope, standingwithhope.com slash recycle, and let's give the gift that keeps on walking.