Let me ask you this, if your child was being held captive, and the captor asked if you would go through the same things as Jesus to save your child from being tormented forever, would you have the love to say yes? I would want to think I would, but  honesty I don't think I could have done it without anger and resentment. I love my children with a natural love, God loved us with a love that even on our best day, we can't begin to image. We think we know what a sacrifice is but do we? Lets examine what the sacrifice of Jesus really involved, to the best of my ability I'll try to put myself in his place.

His wrist were raw from being tied repeatedly, first when he was taken captive, then when he was tied to the whipping post. I know when I get a little bruise that I keep bumping I am not happy, or an easy to get along with person. Now lets add someone taking a whip and beating us and tearing hunks of our flesh from our bodies, our blood not oozing but pouring onto the ground in puddles. Shredding our flesh from the shoulders down. Personally when I see my own blood I want to pass out and I turn sick to my stomach. To weak to walk from the beating, now you are drug over stony ground, ripping the flesh from your legs and knee's. Tossed aside to deal with your pain, no one to give you aid, to wash the blood from your gapping cuts.

The heat is rising, bringing with it the flies, gnats and mosquitoes to feast on your open wounds. Bringing with them germs and infection. To weak to fight them off you lay there as they make a banquet of your body. Minutes seem like hours as you lay there every muscle and nerve screaming out in agony as the wounds continue to seep blood. Precious blood that is needed to keep the body alive.

Infection now enters your body full scale, fever brings on the chills and the pain worsens. But the captor isn't done yet, they want to slap you in the face and spit on you, hitting you hard enough to make your aching head flop from side to side. That still doesn't satisfy them, the last piece of dignity is taken from you, they strip you naked and make fun of you. For a short period of time they leave you alone to be mutilated by your pain and embarrassment.

 You think to yourself, finally it's done, but it's not. They return with more criticism and a crown made of thorns. The sharp thorns dig into your forehead as they shove it down upon your head. More precious life giving blood oozing down your face, ears and the back of your head. Drying into your hair till its a mass of sweat and blood. Your not even recognizable as a human anymore.

You think finally its done, but your not that lucky. They drag you out into a courtyard and there is a large rough, splinter covered piece of wood in the shape of a cross. Shoved forward you are told, climb that mountain with it on your sore infected shoulders. Its weight is almost more than your weak body can lift, yet you know your child's life depends on your doing it. You struggle to walk with it, the splinters tearing into the wounds on your body, it bumping the crown of thorns on your head. You fall, they kick you and say get up. Finally at the top of the mountain, they again strip you naked in front of the whole town and lay you on the rough wood of the cross. As they position you on the cross the splinters dig to what feels like the bone, through the tender, raw flesh of your already beaten shoulders, arms, legs and back. You can't move to ease the pressure, all you can do is lay there trying to remember that it's your life for your child's. Then you see the hug spikes and hammer. Realizing that they are about to slam the spikes into your fragile hands. You try to prepare yourself for the pain to come but no preparation is enough for the pain you feel as the spikes burry themselves in your flesh. First one hand then the other. Blood gushing from the openings, they leave your hands and move to your feet. Placing them one on the other they once more place a spike on them. The cold hard steel makes you cringe as you see the man with the hammer lift his hand and suddenly the pain rips through your body, echoing in your ears.

The cross is lifted and as it slams into the hole at the base, the splintered wood drives deeper into your flesh. Your own body weight pulls at the spikes in your hands deepening the pain. Your sight weakens as your blood continues to flow from your body. Still you can see the crowd going on with their day as if this is nothing.

You can hear their cries of mocking and as the sun grows higher in the sky and the heat of the day intensifies. Your tongue begins to swell from lack of fluids in your body. You ask for something to drink and hoping for a cool drink, they offer you something that disgust you and the smell alone makes you sick at to your stomach. Each moment seems like an eternity as you wait for death in agony. Finally after hours of suffering its over.