What does it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses his soul? What point is there to that which doesn't last? What value does dust have, what worth in the wind? This world, it struggles so hard to find meaning in one night, in one dollar, in one thing after another. It believes whatever it takes to feel, just for a moment, just for an instant, peace.
Yet we run. The one thing, the only thing that has ever filled. The only thing that offers fullness. Meaning. Others offer a way, a path of works. A way to strip yourself of all that makes your soul unique. A way to ridicule your own existence. But this is mercy. This is grace. Those aren't just words on a page. He died on the cross. Do you understand that? He, a man, a lamb without sin, nothing separating him from God. He died. He chose that thing that we all fear. He chose the reaper. He died on the cross. Nails, about half of a foot, sharp. Through his hands. Through his feet. Nails. Sharp. Biting steel, through his skin, then through muscle. That is the layer that really hurts. But it didn't stop. Through bone, through more muscle, then out the back of his hand. His hand. Into the wood. Do you hear the screams of the thieves? Do you feel the rough wood on your back, the splinters digging into your skin? Then they raised him. The body falls, heavy on the nails in his hands. But for the first time, he can see the people at the foot of the cross. None of them were there. He had loved them like brothers and sons. He had talked to them, fed them, even washed their feet. He had protected them. He could have said, "Don't kill me and I will tell you who else was with me!" He could have turned them over, out of pure spite. They deserved it. They had left him. All alone. But no. And even now, when it was done, they didn't even come to see him die. They didn't try to get him down, they didn't rush the guards. They didn't even cry at his feet. The blood starts to drip off his feet. It has run down from his ankles, his side, even his head. He was dying with a crown of thorns. If he leaned back his head to breath, he could feel the sharp spikes going into his head. Did he cry? He looked at his mother. He looked for his father. His friends, the men he trusted. His father. They all turned away. He was alone.
For three hours that day, those couple of feet from the ground were the highest peak. No one could do what he was going to. No one knew what he was going through. It would be nice to think that his hands had started to go numb. But he wasn't even thinking of that. He knew this wasn't the end. But it felt like it. For three hours that day. The holes in his hands were getting bigger as his body pulled on the nails. The nails wouldn't move. Neither would the cross. Neither would he.
He had made his choice. He had all the power. He was in complete control. He could have destroyed the men responsible with a thought. He could have burned the guards where they stood. He could have cut in half the people mocking him. He could have broken that cross and walked off of it. But he didn't. He knew that his men, his friends, abandoned him. He knew that one of his closest friends, who swore he would never leave him, had cursed and denied knowing him, had lied before admitting even that he had walked with him. He knew that the one who betrayed him had hung himself. He knew that the men who did this, they hated him, from their greedy hearts they planned not just to kill him, but torture him to death. He knew the crowds laughed at him. They hated him too, and they didn't even know why. But all the same, while he was dying, they tried to hurt him. He knew. But he stayed there. He could have broken the cross, but he let it break him. For me. He knew that if he got off that cross, I would be put there. They couldn't put me there while he was there. He stayed so I wouldn't be put there. So my blood wouldn't fall, mingled with screams and dust, to the cold ground. So they wouldn't throw rocks at my limp and bleeding body. So the father wouldn't look away from me.
He stayed, so that I wouldn't have too. He took the pain, so I wouldn't have to. He took the shame for what I did wrong. Even when I turned away. Even when I screamed, when I laughed at him on the cross, when I threw stones, when I cursed his name, when I picked up the hammer, pulled back, and hit the nail as hard as I could. He stayed.
Feel free to give me your thoughts. (But please tell me in a msg or something, instead of linking to nonsensical trash)