Day 18

I stumble through the woods, seeing the leaves on the ground and hearing them crackle beneath my faltering feet. I'm covered in dirt, so covered that it has seeped into my pores and seems to reach to my bones. It irritates my skin, making me scratch at it, but it only makes it worse. All I want is to be clean again, but I can't find anything that can help me. I search in vain. I just want to be clean! And then suddenly the trees thin out and there's a little clearing, and in the clearing there is a man. At first I think that he, too, is covered in dirt, but as I get closer I see that it is actually blood. His blood, coming from so many wounds I don't know how his skin is holding him together. I look into His eyes, and in them see the deepest well of suffering and pain that a person could ever endure. And the worst part is not that I am unable to prevent this suffering,

But that I caused it.

This man is dying, and I killed Him.

I want to tear my eyes away in shame, but something compels them to stay. His eyes, those pools of sorrow, are also a well-spring of love- love that overflows and pours over me. I look down, and I see the dirt that was covering me washing away. It only takes a moment, and then I am clean.

Step out of the story with me. Take away the forest. Replace the clearing with a hill named Golgatha. Replace innocent dirt with permeating sin. And put the man on a cross. What do we have, my friends? We have where guilty was replaced with innocent, condemnation replaced with grace. A place where righteousness replaced wickedness and justice coincided with mercy. We have the truth that we are all sinners, and Christ came and died for our sins when we were without hope. He took the punishment for our sin on the cross, and then he conquored the penalty for our sin by defeating death by rising again from the dead. This is the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Why the gospel, you ask? Because, my friends, in order to understand true joy, you have to go to the place where your sin was hideous and your soul was black. For only when you see the depth of your depravity can you understand the depth of grace needed to cover it. Only when you understand that Christ died on YOUR cross and took the punishment for YOUR sins, can you understand what love really looks like. And only that can bring true and everlasting joy.

Ponder the cross. Look at the cause of unimaginable suffering and find the ultimate paradox: true joy.