The Great Sacrifice

You and your twelve best friends go into a city. The people are cheering for you and treating you like they do royalty that just got back from victory. But you know everything, so you know what their cheers will soon turn to. You stay in the town for a week, and for your standards, you stay pretty low‑key, mainly spending time with your friends and doing a couple of miracles; after all, you are still Jesus. Thursday night comes, and you have a meal with your friends. Like I already mentioned, you know everything, so you know what will happen later that night, but for now you just want to spend time with your friends, even though you know that one of them is planning to betray you. In a lesson of humility and love, you get your friends together to wash their feet. Peter tries to refuse, but you don’t let him.

Afterward, you head to the garden where y’all have been staying. Judas is nowhere to be seen, but he is the accountant, so that doesn’t surprise anyone. When you get there, everyone is tired and goes to bed, but you’re anxious — and rightfully so — so you grab Peter, James, and John, your three closest friends, and ask them to stay up and pray with you. Then you go off to pray. You are pouring your heart out; it feels like you are praying for your life, and you know that you are. After some time passes, you go back to see how your closest three are doing and find them asleep in your time of need. Disappointed, you wake them up and go to pray some more. This time you pray even more intensely, so much so that you start to sweat blood. But despite your desperation, when you return to your friends, they have once again fallen asleep. But this time there is no opportunity for second chances, because coming into the picture you see Roman soldiers — and leading them is your so‑called friend Judas.

Judas comes over and kisses you on the cheek, a common greeting back then but also a sign to the Roman guards of whom to arrest. You just got betrayed by one of your closest friends, and for thirty pieces of silver no less — about $200 today. Peter comes over and cuts a guy’s ear off. At least he is ready to fight for you, but that doesn’t mean much; he was fighting Romans before he knew you. But you don’t want to make things worse, so you just bend down and put the guy’s ear back on his head and go with the soldiers.

The soldiers take you to the house of the chief priest for your trial. But this trial isn’t fair, and everyone knows it. They are trying you at night so nobody knows. With nobody there to represent you and their minds already made up, you know what their decision is going to be. Before sunrise, they charge you with blasphemy, a charge punishable by death under Jewish law, but only Rome has the power to kill, so you know your trial isn’t over.

In the morning, they take you to Pilate, the Roman governor, so he can have the final say. But they overlooked something: blasphemy isn’t punishable by death in Rome. They’re not too worried, though; they just change the charge to treason. However, Pilate doesn’t think you are guilty, but unfortunately he is scared of the crowd, so he decides to have you punished and released. This isn’t good enough for the crowd that has gathered, and now they are chanting for your death. Pilate looks for a way out and decides that his best option is to offer the release of you or the release of a convicted criminal. To Pilate’s disappointment, the crowd chooses the release of the criminal, sealing your fate. You are to be crucified in place of someone else.

From there, the guards take you immediately to the whipping post. Tied down with your bare back showing, knowing what is coming is unbearable. Then you see the guard coming with a whip that has multiple strands in it. Is that glass in there? That thing looks like a broken bone. Are those blood stains? The guard gets in position, his hand comes down, and the whip strikes your back. The pain is agonizing, but this is only the first strike; you still have many to go.

Weak, bloody, and near death, your nightmare isn’t over. From there you have to carry your own cross — the thing that they are going to use to kill you — to the place where you are to be executed. Once there, they lay you down on the cross and nail your wrists and ankles to it. They are way too good at this and make sure that they don’t break any bones or hit any arteries; they want the process to last as long as possible. Then they lift you up between two criminals as they mock you. As the Son of God, you know that you could call down angels and end this whole ordeal right there and then, but you don’t, and instead you have compassion on them and ask God to forgive them. As you fight for every breath, you notice that all of your friends except for John have left you. Abandoned, you still go through it. As you close in on death, one of the criminals stops mocking you and asks that you remember him. Here is your chance for payback; you can send him away, but you don’t. Instead, you tell him that he will see you in paradise. That’s the second saved, and now your ordeal is over. With one final word, your head drops, and you pass away — only to wake three days later.