The Power of the Cross
The scene unfolds a little over two thousand years ago. Three wooden crosses stand upright on a hill, holding three men worthy of death. The ones on the left and right are both criminals, finally caught and brought to justice by the Roman government. But the one in the middle…he is the object of the discussion. Nobody debates the fact that the two criminals deserve to die, but the crowd has differing opinions on the one in between. Most were once followers, or at the least people who had had family members restored to health by this man. They had at one time gathered over 7000 strong to sit and listen to his teaching for hours on end, drinking in his wisdom and his parables. The evidence would lead one to think that this man was in place to become the next ruler of Israel! Yet…despite all this acclaim and following he received, there remained a problem.
The religious leaders of Israel hold great power over the people. At one time, this had been a good thing. They would shepherd the people in the ways of God, and intermediate between the people and God. However, over time, the religious elite became corrupt…maintaining a facade of Godliness, but denying the power thereof. To the people, they were like holy guardians…but on the inside they were full of rotten filth, having slid so far from the role they were supposed to play.
Now the problem was thus: the religious leaders, who were called “Pharisees”, had worked themselves into a nice little position. Since they were the “mediators” between the people and God, they inflated their positions, and used their power to increase their financial gain. Now this man…this Jesus…is claiming to be God in the flesh, and he unnerves the Pharisees. He seems to read their thoughts, and points out their every flaw to the people.
Flash back to the start of Jesus’ ministry. He is now riding into Jerusalem on a donkey. Nobody understands his true purpose. Both his disciples, and the crowd of people surrounding him, all believe he has come to finally overthrow the Roman rule, and bring peace to Israel. He plans to bring peace, this is undeniable, but the way in which he does it is unlike what anyone is expecting. As he rides down the city street into Jerusalem, the crowd lines the streets in anticipation, and honor him highly by waving palm branches in the air. The disciples are excited…FINALLY their master is doing what he was born to do! He is preparing to defeat the Romans and rule Israel!
However, not everything is as well as it appears. During the passover supper, Jesus tells one of his twelve disciples that they will betray him that night. All are shocked! Betray their master?? Surely it wasn’t them! Shortly thereafter, Jesus tells one of his disciples to do what he has to do. The disciple, named Judas, gets up and leaves. The fact that he is keeper of the moneybags works conveniently in his favor, and none of the other disciples suspect that he is really going to betray the one he has followed.
Several hours later, the time has arrived for the master plan that is as of yet unknown to the world, and the demonic forces that occupy it. However, the man is under a pressure that no other man in the history of the earth has ever known. He sits by a rock in the Garden of Gethsemane, heart pounding at the thought of what lies before him. He has known all along what his entire purpose in this life was. It was not the lot of an ordinary man, to be born and live life…no, this man was called to die.
He lays his head on the rock, and begins to weep. What is about to occur is breaking his heart. He cries out to his Father for another way to accomplish the plan, but he knows there is no other way…and one thing is holding him back from abandoning his purpose. Love.
As he lies by the rock, he begins to pray to his Father. The intense pressure and stress falls on him like a load of bricks, and he begins to sweat blood from his pores. The blood splashes on the rock by his head, staining it red. Finally, after several hours of praying, he rises from his place by the bloodstained ground. The time has come.
As he walks back into the open, the man finds his disciples sleeping on the ground. Not even his closest friends could sit up with him and comfort him in his hour of grief. He had tried to tell them what his plan was, but they would not listen. Now, as he awakes his slumbering disciples from their resting place, the sound of shouts and clanking armor arises from around the bend. Judas has fulfilled his mission, and has betrayed Jesus to the pharisees. As the disciples rise, and see the scene unfolding, panic strikes. They scatter in all directions, as they flee to escape the Roman guards. The man, however, stands his ground resolutely. He knows what the task is before him, and despite the unimaginable cost, he continues.
His arms are tied roughly behind his back, and he is marched before the Sanhedrin; the council of the Pharisees. The air is tense…they’ve waited for this moment for what seems like an eternity. FINALLY the enemy of their “righteous facade” is captured! The man’s captors throw questions at him right and left, in an attempt to snare him, but he refuses to answer. Finally, the High Priest shouts out “I command you under oath of the Most High God! Are you the Christ, the Son of God?” “It is as you say”. replies the man. All hell breaks loose, and the high priest tears his robes. Blasphemy! This man actually claimed to be God’s son!
The Sanhedrin ends in disarray, and the guards are instructed to drag the man before Pontius Pilate, a governor in that region. The crowd, which just several days earlier had heralded his arrival into the city with honor, now incited by the pharisees, begins to scream for his crucifixion. The man’s head bows with sorrow. They don’t realize what his plan is. If they did, they would shrink back in shame. Pilate, not wishing to kill Jesus, attempts to appease the crowd by subjecting this man to a roman beating.
A guard grabs the man’s wrists and ties them to a rough wooden pole that sticks out of the center of a small courtyard. He cinches the knot tight, so that there’s no room for escape. Another guard stands behind the man, holding a cat o’ nine tails. They would give thirty nine lashes with this whip, totaling over 350 hits. The whip went back in the Roman’s’ fist, and cracked in the air as it returned to land it’s first blow on the man’s back. The nine barbed tongues of the whip bite into his back and side, ripping flesh and burning like fire. The man screams as blood begins to pour from his back and sides. The whip rises and falls again. Arching his back in pain as the sharp tips of the whip dig into his flesh opening new wounds and deepening the old, the man screams yet again, but does not beg for mercy. The plan must continue. Thirty seven more times the whip rises and falls, emaciating the man beyond recognition as his back, sides, chest and stomach are disfigured beyond repair. Blood soaks the courtyard beneath the scene, and the roman soldier finally lowers the whip.
The man is hauled to his feet by two guards on either side. He is brought before the crowd, along with a notorious criminal named Barabbas, in a last ditch effort by Pilate to appease the people without killing him. “Whom would you rather me release to you?” Pilate cries out. “Jesus, who is called Christ, or Barabbas?” Then, the unimaginable happens. The people, so frenzied in their thirst for blood, demand that Jesus be given to them for crucifixion, and Barabbas be released.
The man is lying on the ground, barely able to move. His nerves are spasming due to the overload of excessive pain and blood loss. He coughs up blood.
A group of soldiers grabs him and hauls him into a chair. They want their fun before he dies, so they dress him in a purple robe, mocking his claimed royalty, and shove a wreath of thorns on his head. One of the soldiers digs this painful crown into his skull. They then proceed to spit on him, and hit him with their hands. A tear slips from one of his eyes as pain and sorrow wash over him.
Done with their fun, the soldiers bring him to his feet. A massive wooden cross over 14 feet long and weighing over a hundred pounds is laid on his back to carry. As they place it on his back, the rough wood further chafes his raw back, and splinters embed themselves in the rifts caused by the whip. Remarkably, despite his blood loss and quivering limbs, he manages to begin to walk with the cross, the long end trailing behind him and gouging the soil. The tears begin to fall faster now, wetting his cheeks. Blood mingles with sweat on the several mile trek to the hill called Golgotha.
Suddenly, he can go no further. His battered legs give way beneath him, and he crumples to the ground; the cross falling on top of him. A man from the crowd, Simon by name, is called upon to bear the cross the rest of the way. He picks up the wooden cross, which is by now slick with blood and sweat, and continues the journey.
Finally, the entourage reaches the top of the hill, where several other soldiers have been working diligently to dig three large holes in the ground.
The guards now take the cross, and lay it flat on the ground. Four soldiers take the man – one to each limb – and stretch him out on the wooden crosspieces. His chest heaves with the awful knowledge of what is about to occur. Massive metal spikes, almost three quarters of an inch in diameter are brought, and laid by one of his hands. A burly solder walks up with a hammer, and raises it high. One of the other soldiers positions the nail about an inch below the palm of the man’s hands, and holds it steady while the large soldier swings the sledgehammer. As the hammer strikes the nail, the fire hardened tip pierces straight through the wrist and digs into the wood. Screaming with pain, the man is held down by the guards as he writhes on the cross in bitter agony. The pain of the beating is nothing compared to this type of torture. One by one, each of his limbs is nailed to the piece of wood. By the time the guards are finished, he is nearly unconscious from the pain.
———————–
Three crosses. Three men. Three lives. I hang from this cross, my body broken, my entire being screaming with pain. But the worst has not yet come. As I hang here, clouds roll over the sky. Suddenly, my body jerks and I’m overwhelmed with more sorrow and guilt than any normal person could bear. I do not deserve the punishment I am recieving…I have lived my whole life in accordance with the will of my Father. I have never sinned, not even once. And it is for this very reason that I am doing what I am. As I hang here, my Father God places on me the sins of the entire world. I can see every sin of every person who ever lived or will live, and it is now my own. Greed, envy, anger, slander, lust, murder, idolatry, vanity, unforgiveness, and more are all placed on me. If I was completely human, I would have died from just a fraction of what I now bear. The weight of the sorrow that I feel from the sins I have now taken threatens to cause my heart to implode on itself. But I hold on to life.
My Father and I have always been close. We think the same on everything, because he and I are one. Our love for each other knows no limits. But this day is different. I and my Father were both holy. Pure, set apart from the world, and perfect. But as I on the cross take upon myself the sins of the world, our connection is suddenly severed. Everything in me screams to save myself from this, to heal myself, throw myself off the cross, and be free of this pain. But there is one reason and one reason only that I hang, bleeding from every part of my body, writhing in pain, on this cross.
————————-
As I watch from heaven with the angels I have created, my heart wrenches with pain. I have sent my only Son to earth to live among the humans as a man, to die. Grief and anger washes over me as I watch what they do to him. Every time the whip lashes him, every nail pounded in…I feel it as if it were me; and it drives a stake into my heart as I watch him hang in agony on the cross. I want to speak a word, and destroy every human alive on the earth for what they have done! But one thing holds me back. My son is following My plans that I laid out for him…and I have to hold my end of it…which is to not destroy the earth while this is in play. If only these humans could see the activity in the spiritual realm, they would shrink back. My angels do not even fully understand what is happening. They beg me to allow them to annhilate the humans, for this mistreatment of their master…and although I want to allow them, I hold them back. The demons are having their heyday…they have been trying for thousands of years to overthrow my Son so that their leader Satan could have the throne, and they are within moments of realizing their dream. I watch as my son takes on himself the sins of the world…and at that moment, something changes. My heart snaps with grief, and I can no longer look at my Son, who is no longer perfect. I cannot allow imperfection to enter Me, so I turn my face away from my son. Tears fall from my cheeks as my heart strains to grab my son and rescue him, but I tear my face away and close my ears to his cries.
—————————–
When my Father turns his face away from me, I weep with bitter agony. I am beaten beyond recognition, friendless, filled with sin, and hanging from a cross, and now, Fatherless. To most, it would appear that I should have lost the will to live a long time ago, but I still hang on to life. My heart filled with anguish, I cry out to my Father. “My God, my God! Why have you forsaken me?” The salty tears mix with the blood on my chest as I hear no reply from the heavens. My Father has turned His back. I am utterly forsaken. My throat is parched from my screams and weeping. I cry out for something to drink. My time has come…the plan that I have been living out is ready to be fulfilled. I have left my glorious home in heaven, as a king, and given up my royal garments to come to earth as a lowly human peasant. I have been mocked as a fool, beaten near death, my skin is shredded, and I am hanging by metal spikes driven through my arms and feet into wooden crosspieces, been forsaken by my friends, and ultimately, my Father…for one purpose alone.
Love.
As tears stream down my face, the one thing that keeps me nailed to this cross is the fact that I desperately love these humans who are mistreating me. I created them with my own hands from the dust of the ground, and even though they mock and despise me, my love for them is undiminished. Since they are sinners, they can never dwell with me in the heavenly places, because my Father and I are perfect, and cannot have imperfection. Therefore, I have agreed to give up my life to take all their sins upon me. My one wish is that they will one day come to love me as desperately as I love them.
A soldier arrives with a sponge of wine on the end, for me to drink. As soon as I have tasted this, my time comes. Using the last of my strength, I cry out “It…is…FINISHED!”
————————-
Three days. the man’s body was removed from the cross by a man named Joseph of Aramathea, wrapped, and spiced. Joseph donated his own tomb that he had worked long and hard on for himself, and placed the body of the man inside. That was three days ago. Today, several women travel to the tomb to finish the burial process with a few more spices and aloes. As they arrive at the tomb, however, they stop quickly in shock. The massive stone that had covered the entrance to the tomb opening, which had been guarded by some of Rome’s finest guards, was rolled back from the door, and the entrance lay unhindered, like the maw of a giant beast. Trembling, the women enter into the tomb. The body is gone! Someone has stolen the body! As they turn around to leave and tell the others, two shining beings appear, bathing the cave with light from their radiance. “Why do you seek the living among the dead?” one asks. “He is not here, he is risen!”
————————-
That day was the most joyful day of my life. When I rose from the dead, I defeated death, sin, and the grave! When I rose, the demonic forces were having one of the largest parties ever seen in the spiritual realm…preparing to go into battle to overthrow my Father. But then that moment…oh, the joy! I entered right into the middle of their celebration…every last one of them froze. It was quiet as a tomb, as they all stared with wide eyes and gaping mouths. Slowly, I held up my nail-scarred wrists, and clutched in my right hand were the keys to death and hell. “Satan!” I cried out. “The human race is mine! I claim them for myself! I have bought them with my own blood, and if they choose to accept my free gift of salvation, they will be FREE from your grasp!” At that moment, all of heaven exploded with joy and excitement.
Now, I see you, my son, my daughter. For your entire life you’ve fled from what I’ve done…but look at my hands. Look at my feet. I was beaten for you, mocked, scorned, took your sins and punishment, and died in your place. I stood in your place in front of My Father, who would have given you what you deserved…an eternity in torment for your sins, and have redeemed you with my blood. Will you believe? I desperately long every day to be with you…but the only way is if you accept my gift. I give it freely, paid with my own life. Your debts are paid in full. My hands and feet tell you that I love you. If you were the only person on this earth, I would endure the cross and the suffering all over again.
I did it for you.
Click below to hear a powerful song that goes along with this narrative.
“The Power of the Cross”
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