Imagine being dragged to your death for false accusations.

One of your closest friends took a bribe to hand you over to the authorities.

They twist your words, accusing you of things you never said or did.

You already know your fate, and you do not answer.

People would rather release a murderer instead of you.

The crowd yells for you to be tortured and killed.

If this weren’t enough: They strip your clothes off, and dress you in different clothes just to mock you in front of everyone. They make fun of you, laugh at things you said, but they’ve taken it all the wrong way. They laugh at your pain. They treat you like stupid, useless comic relief. They treat you like you’re dumb and weak and worthless.

They laugh and laugh and hit you and dig spikes into your head.

Then they lead you off to be torturously killed.

This is what Christ endured.

While we rightfully honor the intensity of Christ’s physical suffering, we often gloss over the intensity of His interior suffering.

Not only to be so physically tortured—but before even all that, to be betrayed by one of His closest friends, to be falsely accused, to be treated as a laughingstock, to die while being treated as stupid, weak, worthless…

And surely, the evil one was saying: ”And for what? It will all be useless.”

He was probably saying that what You’ve done, that You would never be enough to save them.

I was praying about this the other day:

Lord, I am so sorry… I am so sorry you had to endure such a thing—and for us?

Have we played my part in it? Sinned against You? Caused You such deep suffering? Lord, please forgive us, though we do not “deserve” Your forgiveness.

If we had been in your position—how could we have born even that interior suffering? We care too much what others think. We are often vain and self-focused. How could our pride have ever born it?

Lord, save us. Let not all You did be in vain.

Lord, how could You bear it? How did the saints? The martyrs?

Only by Your supernatural grace. By the Holy Spirit.

How can we be so rooted in our Faith and trust in You–in our worth in You, not in others’ views of us–even at the point of death? To die even as people see us as a worthless fool?

It only destroys our spirit if we believe it is true.

Lord, help us. Heal our hearts when we still believe these lies, so that we may be truly at peace in knowing how You see us and love us. To truly be satisfied knowing our worth to You, finding assurance in our goodness, in how You made us, and how loved we are despite our flaws and weaknesses.

Heal that broken part of us to the depths of our souls.

Thank you…

My thank you feels so small in comparison, cannot make up for what was done to You… But thank you, thank you, thank you, Lord, for what You endured for us… even just the shame alone that you endured.

My good, good Lord: tell me, how did you bear it?

I asked, and sat speechless as He answered:

“I thought of you.”

“And your thank you.”

“That it would be all worth it. Even if I could only save just you.”

This is His comfort.

Our thank you–our acknowledgement of His goodness, against those who betrayed Him and mocked Him–however small, this is His comfort.

Veronica simply wiping His face was His comfort.

Simon helping Him carry His cross: that was His comfort.

Remembering the woman who broke the jar of perfume and wiped his feet with her hair and her tears: that was His comfort. (Even back then He knew His fate, telling her, “The poor you will always have with you… but you will not always have me.” – Mark 14:7)

The women who mourned Him on His way to Calvary: they were His comfort.

And yet He replied to them: “Do not weep for me; weep instead for yourselves and for your children” (Luke 23:28).

Why?

Because He suffered so much more from our sins–from His desperate desire to save His children–than from any physical suffering He endured.

He wasn’t thinking about Himself, didn’t become bitter because of His suffering, even when He felt rejected and abandoned. He wasn’t thinking about how people saw Him, not seeking to die with dignity in the eyes of the world.

Even as He was dying, those passing by twisted His words to mock Him:

“You who would destroy the temple and rebuild it in three days, save yourself, if you are the Son of God, and come down from the cross!”

Likewise the chief priests with the scribes and elders mocked him and said,

“He saved others; he cannot save himself… Let him come down from the cross now, and we will believe in him. He trusted in God; let him deliver him now if he wants him. For he said, ‘I am the Son of God.’”

The revolutionaries who were crucified with him also kept abusing him in the same way.

(Matthew 27:39-44)

But, no, He did not do anything to defend His pride… because He was thinking of us.

Even when, near the moment of death, He felt so utterly abandoned, crying out: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Matthew 27:46).

Even then, as He felt so utterly devoid of consolation, those who did not believe in Him mocked Him, saying: “let us see if Elijah comes to save him” (Matthew 27:49).

But those like His mother and the Apostle John, who stayed with Him at the foot of the cross—knowing that they were both there for Him despite their fear, and that they would be there for each other as He told John, “Behold, your mother”—they were surely His comfort.

Even the “Good Thief,” though he had lived a sinful life, when he turned to believe in Christ even in his last moments, looking toward being together in His kingdom: he was surely Christ’s comfort.

This is what the Lord desires most from us:

Our thank you.

Our humility.

Our little acts of love.

Our acknowledgement of His goodness.

That His sacrifice would not be in vain.

That we would receive His love and mercy, and allow it to heal and transform us. That we would find our worth in Him—not in the opinions of those around us.

That we would let Him save us.

That we would stay by His side and rely on Him.

That, as He rose from the dead and ascended into Heaven, we would come home with Him.

Have a blessed Good Friday and Easter.

Notes:

Image: Ecce Homo (Behold the Man) Painting by Antonio Ciseri. Wikimedia Commons.