I hung behind the crowd as Jesus was taken from the Praetorium to the Place of the Skull.  Jesus was weak from the scourging, so the soldiers made a passerby carry his cross.  I could see stripes of dark blood staining the back of Jesus’ tunic.  As he stumbled along the road he wasn’t even wearing his sandals.  One of the guards at the palace had snatched them away as he mocked Jesus, sneering, “You won’t need these anymore.”  Three men were being crucified.  I couldn’t look as soldiers stretched out condemned limbs and pounded nails.  I covered my ears to cries of anguish, to moans as the crosses were lifted and body weight pulled against the piercings.  Done.  “Who’s next?” yelled one of the soldiers.  The rest of them laughed and the crowd shrank back.  In a short while many people had drifted away.  The main event was over and it would take forever for these men to die.  The centurion released most of his soldiers to other duties.  Plenty of people looked up at the crucifixion from the busy road and made comments, but soon, up on the hill, just a scattering of onlookers remained, with a huddle of women some distance back.  

Finally I looked at Jesus—bleeding, racked with pain, already struggling to breathe, his face in anguish, yet his eyes focused.  Ahead he saw the city he loved and wept over, the city whose people forgot their hosannas and turned their backs on him.  To his left he saw the magnificent temple, his Father’s house, whose leaders clung to the laws of men rather than their Maker.  Across the road he saw a garden, with a new tomb cut out of rock.  Nearby he saw his beloved mother, his dear friend John, and the criminals crucified next to him.  And he saw me.  

Oh Jesus!  It’s my fault!  I didn’t believe you.  I was afraid.  I was selfish.  I loved praise from men more than from you.  I loved my comfortable life more than your truth.  I thought I could make my own rules.  I didn’t love as you love.  I denied you.  I pretended you were someone else.  I pretended I couldn’t hear you.  I betrayed you.  I hated you.  It’s my sin that put you there.  It’s my death you’re dying.

I ran to the cross.  I kissed Jesus’ wounded feet and let his blood fall on me.  At noon the sun disappeared and darkness descended.  Creation mourned its dying Maker.  The minutes ticked by interminably.  Jesus’ physical pain was excruciating; what was his inner torment?  He was in agony, yet still Jesus spoke words of love and truth as his life was slipping away.  How long, O Lord?  How great is my sin!  

“Finally, with a loud cry, Jesus breathed his last.  The curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom.  And when the centurion, who stood there in front of Jesus, heard his cry and saw how he died, he said, ‘Surely this man was the Son of God!’” (Mark 15:37-39).

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It is finished.  Jesus completed his mission to bring salvation to sinners.  The Son of God came to earth as a real human being, lived the perfect life we could not live and died the death we deserve.  In the greatest exchange ever, he took our sin and guilt and gives forgiveness and new life now and forever to those who believe in him.  God himself put an exclamation point on his completed work by tearing the thirty-foot-long, four-inch-thick curtain in the temple that separated him from his people.  Jesus’ broken body is the entrance into the forgiving embrace of our Father.  All are welcome, even a centurion who pounded nails into human flesh.  Even me.  Even you.

O wondrous love!  Bountiful forgiveness!  Amazing grace!  Would you run to the cross with me?  Kneel in repentance.  Believe in his death for you and receive forgiveness and eternal life.  Fall down in grateful worship under his blood poured out for sinners—poured out for broken people, poured out for me, poured out for you.

(Mark 15:16-41)

From Jan, with love in our Crucified and Risen Savior