Good Friday.  The day Jesus paid it all.  Literally.  Everything I owed. Everything you owed.  It was messy and brutal and devastating and He paid it.

Romans 5:8 “But God shows His love for us that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”

I’ve known this verse most of my life.  But after studying Romans last semester, something happened.  I got it.  I mean the cross was bad.  It was brutal and bloody, but if you think long and hard, you might imagine worse ways to die.

But what I got, what I really understood, was that it wasn’t so much the brutality of His death, it was this:  Imagine the one person on Earth that has hurt you worse than anyone.  The one person who has done the worst most painful most wounding thing to your heart.  I bet you now who they are…who hurt you?

Can’t think of anyone?  Well, congratulations.

Then let me help you out, let me paint a picture.  Imagine everyone you know and love is around.  Then imagine someone you love begins to beat you and rip your clothes until you are naked and bleeding and then they mock you and spit on you.  They make so many of those people you love believe you are insane and delusional and that you actually deserve the pain, the humiliation, the grief.

Do you hate them yet?

Try this…imagine they did all this to your child.

You would hate them, wouldn’t you?  I know I would.  I would want them to pay.

Now.  Imagine, God says to you, “They are going to have to pay for every wrong they have ever done, every person they have ever hurt.”  I don’t know about you, but I’d say something like “It’s about damn time.”  But then, in the absurdist of absurdities, He says to you, “They could avoid having to pay, if you pay instead”.  “I’m sorry, God, I don’t think I heard you right?  You want me to take their punishment?”

The thing that makes this week Holy is this: Jesus never wanted us to pay.  Even though humans despised and rejected and mocked Him, he went to incredible lengths to keep us from having to pay the penalty for it.

You see, Jesus…He didn’t just die.  He died for the ones who inflicted the deepest wound on His heart.  The ones He loved.  You, me, them. The very people who were supposed to love Him.  We spit in His face.  We called Him a liar and a lunatic.  We beat Him and conspired against Him.  And He still hung.  He still said, “they don’t know what they’re doing.”

And He did it all so we wouldn’t have to pay.

Yeah, this week has been hard.  And it feels far from Holy.  Missed deadlines, bickering kids, a mountain of laundry, not enough hours in the day, the piercing of a scalpel, broken relationships, an onslaught of unsuspected bills, loved ones in the hospital…and that’s just my week…you fill in the blank…

But you see.  Hard and holy are so often one in the same.  The holiest things, are often the hardest things.  The Cross of Christ was both the hardest and the holiest thing.  And you know what, my rough week isn’t anywhere near a cross.

So here’s what I’m choosing to do this Holy Week (that is starting to feel a little more holy as I write this)… I’m gonna sing my way to Easter Sunday…

Let’s make these our Easter anthems.  As we remember the One who paid it all.