Can you imagine? Jesus in the flesh, every muscle tense. Working.
Straining beyond any measure. Constant. Agonizing.
Every ounce of energy beckoned for one more moment. Another second.
Every effort summoned to exert more strength. More power.
That is, all the muscles not already broken or torn and unable to react.
And nerves.
Nerves hammering, screaming, “Quit-the-hell what you’re doing! Give us
relief!”
Unceasing, unparalleled torment from nerve endings, nerve paths, nerves
connecting muscles, flesh, bone. Every cell exploding and blaring to the brain:
This! Must! Stop!
It doesn’t. He doesn’t let it. Push harder. Pull deeper.
Imagine: fingers and nails claw and fight, dig in and don’t give up.
Don’t let up. A little more. A little longer. Using all he had. All he is.
Can you imagine?
I guess we really can’t. I can’t. All this to survive a little longer on a
cross.
We think of Jesus on the cross suffering. Surely he did. We see
crucifixes and drawings with a forlorn face, a drooping body.
But imagine it a little differently: instead of seeing him gasping to survive—see
him furiously, ferociously fighting on that cross. Fighting for you. For me.
Suffering? Absolutely. But not as victim.
Punished for my sin? Yes. But also there as warrior.
Can you imagine it not as excruciating pain but as the explosive brawn
of God, Jesus in the flesh, straining and fighting for you?
Jesus the champion fighting. Jesus the wrestler striving with every
breath, straining with every motion to win a battle with unthinkable cosmic stakes.
I hadn’t thought much before about Jesus being ferocious.
Ferocious in his body, battling for me.
Furious in flesh and blood clawing against the enemy for me.
Not fighting tooth-and-nail for his own life but for mine. Victory was assured, but still it’s the battle-of-the-ages. The Lamb of God slain, ferocious in
his sacrifice. In his forgiveness. In his love.
Maybe this vision of God fighting ferociously on your behalf will mean
something this Easter season. Ferocious love for you. Maybe his fiercest battle was actually
the struggle in Gethsemane where he weighed your worth, my worth, against the
terrible cost of sacrifice. But still, it was all embodied at Calvary where he
followed the Father’s will that he fight for us.
You’d think we are hardly worth it.
I’d think you were right.
Happily, he thinks otherwise. You can trust him. Don't you just love him?
Can you imagine?
