The days prior to Easter have been difficult, I kid you not. This has been one of the hardest years I’ve had because it’s really been one major test after the other. I would love to say I passed them all, and with flying colors, but the sad truth is that I didn’t. I haven’t kept the faith a lot of times, and I could blame a million, 500 things for that, but ultimately, it’s because I’m the one who kept on tripping.

Yet that’s also one reason why we celebrate Lent and Easter, right? To remember that Someone loved us so much that even if we trip, stumble, fall flat on our faces, we’ll be picked up once again. I watched “The Passion of the Christ” over the break, and I was struck again how much different we are from God. From the cheering community that we are celebrated His arrival in the city with cheers and waving of palm fronds, we become the spitting, snarling, jeering crowd who mocked His way to Golgotha and the Cross. You see, we can’t really blame Pontius Pilate for allowing His crucifixion to happen: it was us who put Him there. His blood is in our hands. Yet He does not condemn us for that. On the contrary, the reason why Jesus died on the Cross is for us to not be condemned. In that single act of sacrifice, He cleansed us of our sins by taking all of these as His own. He definitely felt physical pain: imagine being scourged and speared and whipped so badly that you resemble nothing more than hamburger meat. What probably hurt him the most, however, was the pain of taking up ALL our sins. He who was pure and holy became tarnished with all of what we’ve done. Imagine a pure white sheet not only being spattered by a few flecks of mud, but completely immersed in that. That’s what happened to Him, and it’s all because of His love for us.