Today I die
I sit in my cell with the bare cold hungrily eating into my flesh, my wounds almost numb from the night before. Suddenly I look up into the face of my executioner. He clamps irons on my wrists and I am pushed, pulled, and dragged up the winding stair case onto the street above. A cross is driven onto my back by the ruthless pull of gravity and I am told to walk, so I walk. A soldier follows in place of my shadow and strikes me with his whip whenever I slow down, so I don’t slow down, I move as quickly as my beaten body will allow until I reach the top of the hill where I am finally permitted to lie down upon my burden. I close my eyes and tense my throat as vomit threatens to choke me from the agony of the spikes being driven into my hands and feet. Tears burn my eyes and soak my neck as I am lifted up. Everything turns blurry from the pain, people were laughing, I think, I couldn’t really hear past the high pitched ringing raging through my ears.
Breath comes in gasps as the hours pass by. Hours? Or was it days? It felt like days. My shadow comes along and begins breaking legs. Mine are next and suddenly the troubled breathing turns into no breathing at all. Tell me someone can hear me. I know I am screaming so where are the ones to save me? Then it ends. I awaken to see a judge. Sad eyes touch mine and He shakes his head. Two dark figures grasp my arms and drag me away, forever. ‘Wait!’ I cry. ‘Have mercy! Please!’
But there is silence as the judge turns His face away and I am led off to my eternal sentence.
This is what it would be like if Jesus had not taken that cross for us. If instead we had gone through our own crucifixion. Pain, death, hopelessness, and no promise of rescue.
If we had been sacrificed instead it would never have been enough to pay back all the wrongs we have done. In the end death would lead to death and nothing could change that.
Thank God that He sent Jesus to save us. Thank Jesus that He was willing to come.
Thank the Holy Spirit for residing in us.
Without love, God’s love, we would truly have nothing.
As the true story reads.
God so loved the world that He sent His one and only Son. Continue with me. That whosoever believes in Him… should not?…. Might not? Will not perish, but have eternal life. -John 3:16
Thank Jesus today for dying for you.
Carried in the cross 