This is from my devotional yesterday- it is a great but extremely intense picture of the crucifixion:
"As he slowly sags down...on the nails in the wrists, excruciating pain shoots along the fingers and up the arms to explode in the brain-the nails in the wrists are putting pressure on the median nerves. As he pushes himself upward to avoid stretching torment, he places the full weight on the nail through his feet. As the arms fatigue, cramps sweep through the muscles, knotting them in deep, relentless, throbbing pain. With these cramps comes the inability to push himself upward to breathe. Air can be drawn into the lungs but not exhaled. He fights to raise himself in order to get even one small breath...hours of this limitless pain, cycles of twisting, joint rending cramps, intermittent partial asphyxiation, searing pain as tissue is torn from his lacerated back as he moves up and down against the rough timber. Then another agony begins: a deep, crushing pain in the chest as the pericardium slowly fills with serum and begins to compress the heart. It is now almost over-the loss of tissue fluids reaches a critical level-the compressed heart is struggling to pump heavy thick, sluggish blood into the tissues-the tortured lungs are making a frantic effort to gasp in small gulps of air. He can feel the chill of death creeping through his tissues...finally he can allow his body to die."
-The Expositor's Bible Commentary; C. Truman Davis, M.D.
You also have to take into account that at this point, Jesus was forsaken by God. Jesus was dealing with the above physical pain, plus the weight of every sin ever committed by mankind, PLUS the grueling spiritual pain that comes from being abandoned by God (thankfully, we will never have to experience this because Jesus did in our place).
-->HE DID THIS FOR US<--
He loves us so much that he would rather endure all of the above than have to live without us for the rest of eternity.
A love like this demands a response.
What is yours?
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