I wrote this after I had trouble believing in the intensity of Gods insurmountable & inexplicable love for us. Forgive the rambling tone, for some of the process I was in hysterical fits of tears. It is a story more than anything. Forgive me taking artistic lisence. Enjoy.
As Judas kissed Him, and called Him Rabbi, as Judas literally sold Him out for the price of an empty field with blood money, Jesus looked at Him and thought “Though you are a devil, I love you”
When His disciples scattered and abandoned Him, though hours earlier they swore their allegiance, though hours earlier they promised they would lay down their lives for Him, Jesus did not grow bitter. In His heart He said “My dear friends, though you abandon me at the only time I would ever need you, I love you all the same”
Though Peter claimed to be faithlful over all the followers He had, though he said he would do anything for Him, though he denied ever knowing Him three times, though he cursed at the possibility of knowing Him to protect the life he swore he would lay down, though he looked Him straight in the eye and then ran away instead of revealing himself, Jesus watched Peter run for his life and in His heart said “I told you exactly what you would do, you lied as if you hated me, but I will never hate you. Peter, I still love you”
As the Sanhedrin illegally tried Him, beat Him, mocked Him, accused Him of blaspheming His own Father, as they defied Him! Their King! As they did the unthinkable to a guiltless man under a law they had defiled, He looked at their deceived and empty lives thinking “If you could only see beyond religion and your own wicked hearts you would know I am He, and that I love you”
As Pilot questioned Him, tried to force Him to escape the Jews, as he failed to deliver justice and called for a flogging instead, He was silent. When the nine-tailed whip was pulled back, when they lashed across the room towards Him, as the bones and glass tore deep into His flesh, as the welts appeared and disappeared as they burst from the impact after impact thirty-nine times over, He screamed in His heart every time the whip fell “I LOVE YOU! I LOVE YOU! I LOVE YOU!”
As He was sentenced to the cross, as He staggered to where He knew He would die, as He bore the very stand of His divine execution, as He was jeered at and stripped naked by the Roman Centurions and laid down to embrace a brutal death, His only thought to the crowd was “I love you”
As the soldiers prepared the first nail, as they raised the hammer, as they brought it down and drove steel through His skin, His nerves, His veins, His bone… As the thud resounded against the wood and the hammer came down again, causing pure anguish, causing unimaginable pain, causing undeserved agony, He cried out with His soul “I LOVE YOU”
They hammered again. “I LOVE YOU” Again. “I LOVE YOU” Again. “I LOVE YOU” Through both His feet. “I LOVE YOU” AGAIN. “I LOVE YOU”
And there He hung. Again mocked. Again hated. Men gambled for His clothes in front of His bloody face. They let Him see it. They embarrassed Him. God of the universe. They hung Him up with criminals when He was pure and blameless. And whether people mourned for Him or made a joke of Him, He looked at each person gathered there and thought to each of them “I love you”
Then darkness fell and He entered Hell. He entered into God’s wrath. Into what He had never experienced. Sin. And now He held all the guilt that we had on His own shoulders. He bore all our pain. He was punished for all of it. Cut off from the Father, He suffered separation from all He had ever known. He was alone. Alone taking what should have been mine.
Serving the sentence for every lie I told my mother, every blow I laid on my brother, every curse I spoke against my father, every drink down my throat, every item I stole, every fight I got into, every girl I lusted after, every guy I discouraged, every person I hated, all the grudges I hold, every time I was the center of my life, for every second I was fake… He hung and died.
And though I spit in His eye every time I choose to do wrong, I know on that cross Jesus whispered to me across time “Joshua… My servant, my beloved friend. I love you”
graphien 