Crushed by Love

I have been a Christian for nearly as long as I can remember.  I attended Sunday School with my Grandparents most Sundays from the time I was very young, so I am more than familiar with what Christ did for us on the cross on the day we now call Good Friday.  I have read the accounts of Jesus' crucifixion hundreds of times and watched The Passion of Christ in all its painful detail.  Despite all this I found myself crushed by something I heard on the radio this morning.

It wasn't really a song as much as a verbal telling of all Jesus endured between His arrest and death on the cross.  We know that Jesus was beaten and mocked, He was spit on and scorned, and at last He was nailed to the cross between two thieves like a common criminal.  But how often do we stop to think about what that really entailed?  I can only speak for myself, and to be honest, I don't think about it very often.  It isn't a pleasant thing to think on, that Jesus, the only perfect person to walk this Earth suffered for what I have done!  And He suffered in a way that is horrific by even the most grotesque standard.  

As I listened to this retelling of Jesus' final hours, I was crushed, not only by the thought that our perfect Savior was tortured, but more by the knowledge that He was tortured for and because of ME! Every strike of the whip that tore into Jesus' flesh, every harsh word, every slap, every painful strike of the hammer as it drove the nails into His hands and feet, and every moment of agony on the cross, should have happened to me!  And not only that but to understand that Jesus lived His entire life in our world knowing what His end would be!  There was no moment of His agony that was hidden from Him before it happened and yet He CHOSE to go through that.  We know that at any moment, He could have called many legions of angels down to take Him away.  He could have prevented it all yet He did not!  

 I was crushed by the chilling thought that Jesus did all this because of Love!  A love that I as a mere woman, can not even begin to grasp.  It is a love that has no end or condition, it isn't changed by time or circumstance, and that I cannot ruin with my sinful way!  And it is an overwhelming, crushing love for which I can never be thankful enough.  


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