IT was after a Christmas concert, while walking out of the Cathedral, I felt a touch on my arm, and a lady asking, “When will you put up a play again?” I looked at her, “You remember?” I asked, “It’s nearly thirty years since I directed a play, I’d written!” “Oh yes,” she said, “I remember ‘Muscle Power’ so well. It changed my life. Today, I lean on the real muscle and not use my own weak strength!”
I walked out that night from the historic St Thomas Cathedral, remembering every scene of the play and the joy I’d got from writing and directing it. I remember putting up the play all over Mumbai, and strong people coming to me and saying, how they’d broken down during the scene when Peter is led back to his home by his brother Andrew, and Andrew telling a weeping Petter who’s just denied Christ three times, “Peter, it’s not your muscle that the Lord needed, but it’s His muscle that you need!”
Yes, big, strong Peter must have thought that Jesus needed protection, as he used his puny muscle against a storm in a boat, as he used his own courage when he tried to walk on the waves, and then realised it was his Lord, and only his Lord who could help him. His last attempt was when he cut off the ear of one of the men who had come to arrest Jesus, and must have been astounded to see Christ actually healing the man’s ear.
It was a different muscle that Jesus used, one of gentleness, and understanding, love and compassion, and a muscle that He lends to us every day of our lives. He didn’t have the physical muscle to carry the cross up the hill, and another helped Him, but He had the muscle to carry the sins of the whole world from that day forth.
It’s a different muscle that Peter found out the Lord was offering him to use, the muscle of being able to ‘forgive them, for they know not what they do!” It is not the pitting of your muscle against another, but the understanding and insight of realising why that person is doing such to you. God wants us to understand where the action comes from, and in the process of understanding, we are able to forgive. ‘They are not killing me because they hate me, but they crucify me, because they wanted a Messiah who would deliver them from the Romans!” “They are killing me because they feel insecure, and also they know in their hearts that I am right!” I looked at that lady as she went out of the Cathedral and onto the road, and felt happy she had reminded me of the great muscle I lean on everyday, and which you can lean on to..!
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