Others Have Bled

Our love for Christ should not inflate His death
As cruel above all who've died. More unjust,
Yes, for One Who loved with each indrawn breath,
And One Who proved worthy for men to trust.
Their trust best not rest on how much He pained;
He wore flesh only to prove Himself man;
The flesh was killed; His eternal Self remained.
Our sins hurt Him more than lost men ever can.
In more appaling ways have others bled,
Though not guiltless, for their brothers' sake;
All their pain combined is a mior dreg
To the monstrous load He did freely take.
He did not fear the dread pain of the tree,
When He asked God, 'Let this cup pass from Me'.

Dying for us was easy for Jesus compared to living for us and facing rejection, denial and inflexible hostility. Christians have an almost irresistible urge to over-emphasize the atrocious pain inflicted upon the body of Jesus by the Romans who crucified Him. It was more painful though that His own people influenced the Romans to crucify Him.

The horrible suffering of Jesus depicted in the movie, The Passion of the Christ, mistakenly emphasized the agony of the flesh in the crucifixion, and minimized the suffering that the Creator and King of the universe went through emotionally in order to leave the glory of His throne and place Himself in the hands of the wayward creatures He had made in the beginning. The 33 years He lived was more agonizing mentally and spiritually than the killing of His flesh was painful. He loved men while they were yet immersed in sin, yet most of them turned their backs to His pleas.