Beaten, bloodied, battered and dying, he held strong. No matter what abuse they suffered him, no matter the insults they hurled at him, he did not waver. Through the pain, the humiliation, the torment, he held strong.
His face had been struck by fist and rod time and again. His nose was not merely broken, but mangled. Shards of twisted cartilage conspired with congealed blood to seal off his ability to breathe. Both sides of his head had been brutally assaulted by whips and belts, and his left ear, nearly separated from the rest of his face, hung near his jaw. His eyes, bloody slits nearly hidden by his grotesquely swollen face, were filled not with anger, but something else, something out of place in this scene of death.
His beard, twisted and matted with blood, spit, and bile framed the bottom of his seemingly inhuman face. A twisted mass of thorns, harshly puncturing skin and flesh, crowned his head. Stretched to each side, his arms strained, the tendons on their undersides taut to the point of tearing as they supported his weight. Through his wrists, still dripping blood, two large iron spikes were driven through skin, bone, and tendon into a rough hewn olive wood beam. His feet, crossed one over the other, were similarly pierced, securing him to the cross.
His chest heaved slightly, but stopped short of a normal breath. The weight of his body prevented his lungs from filling with air, and instead they filled with blood and water. Had he been able, he would have coughed the foul fluid out, but he was not. He had neither strength, nor desire, nor life to do so. Covered with dust and dirt, mixed with the filth cast at him by others, his body was encased in a crust of defilement.
He could have ended the pain, escaped the suffering, fled the humiliation at any time; but he did not. He could have called upon a legion of angels to avenge his wrongful arrest, but the command remained unspoken. His power was to do so, but his promise, his duty, was to not. His call was to bear the weight of punishment for a poor sinner not yet born, one who would too easily accept the price he paid.
He is Redeemer. He was man. He is God.
He is Christ, my Savior.
Do you know him?
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