Capillaries burst as you sweat. Blood and perspiration trickled down your brow. You cried out in desperation, with shallow breaths, grappling with your ultimate purpose. Sober dread, leading to complete surrender. Fear breaking on the shore of resolve. All for the joy set before you. So in your moment of anxiety, I see courage and I learn to hope. Your resolute commitment in love makes me braver as I face my shadowy valleys, for I know you are with me, and you have already charted a course through. The darkest night in Gethsemane pales in comparison to the earth shaking sunrise that emptied the grave.

Fists and whips struck your flesh. Blood seeping under the surface of your skin, causing swelling and disfiguring you beyond recognition. Your back was gouged into ravines and deep gorges where your blood continually pooled and spurted through. Senseless violence inflicted upon the epitome of innocence. Terrible wounds dealt out joyfully by evil. Suffering often seems gratuitous, unjust and meaningless. Yet you chose it, to step into it, to become well acquainted with it, and to experience the most horrific version of it. So in your agony, and by your stripes, you forge a new path of healing. No longer do I need to run and hide from pain and hurt, for I have a God who understands. You transform pain into opportunity. You glorify scars and make all things new. I can let you have the final word rather than my suffering. I can be defined by you instead of any hurt.

Twisted thorns sunk into your forehead. The ‘crown’ was beaten into your skull as you were mocked. Your face, red, with blood. Every emotion that moved you, every word you spoke, every ragged breath taken, only made the thorns dig in deeper. But this cruel circlet of gnarled thorns, and the mocking purple cloth draped around your bloodied body, were indeed your chosen raiments for your coronation. So in your humiliation, I see glory. The first will become last and the servant of all will be exulted. Ultimate humility in the midst of your humiliation. The eternal King conquering through endurance, not subjugation. Regality bowing to meek confidence. Never has royalty looked so beautifully breath-taking. Thorns becoming more precious than gold and jewels. And you do not guard your glory jealously, instead you seek to share it. All you ask, is for me to humbly take up my cross and follow you.

The nails pierced your hands and feet, pinning your exposed flesh to splintered wood. Your blood dripped down and congealed on the tree that was fashioned into a cross. You slowly suffocated as you were bled dry. So it is written; cursed is the one who hangs from a tree, and cursed you appeared. Abandoned and forsaken. And in the end, you declared that it was finished. So now, after you suffered the curse, I can be blessed. You became forsaken so I can be embraced. You endured death so I can have life. The Divine became human, so that humanity can experience The Divine.

So what could rid me of my fear? What could heal my pain? What could wash away my sin and take away my shame? What could make me whole again and break the curse of death? Nothing but the blood of Jesus. So in your victory over death, your blood that was shed is now transformed. It is now the symbol of the New Covenant, the cup I choose to drink from, eagerly, daily; because it changes all. How precious is the flow that makes me white as snow; no other fount I know; nothing but the blood of Jesus.