I was not prepared for what we did last night.

It was the first time our family went through the “stations of the cross” at our church.

Imagine a large room, dimly lit and set up like a giant maze (think IKEA) with stations that you walk through.

It starts with the first station representing Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane… we walked through a station representing the extra suffering Jesus endured from being betrayed by Judas… we got to pick up and feel the heaviness of the cross…

The whole time we could hear the echo of nails being hammered – and we knew what was coming.

We could hear the voice of someone telling their story about how horrible they felt when they denied Jesus {Peter}… after promising that they wouldn’t.

We could hear guards shouting, “Move on out… nothing to see here.”

When we got to what I thought was the last station, there was a large black curtain hiding the source of the nails we had heard earlier.

We wrote our name on a name-tag and stuck it on our shirts… then we waited.

To be completely honest… I didn’t want to go in.

I knew what was behind that curtain and I didn’t want to see it.

I didn’t want to experience it because I knew that I wouldn’t be able to walk away from it unchanged.

The curtain opened, and I let my family walk in before me… There was a cross laying on the ground. The guards came and acted out nailing Jesus to the cross… surely – some of the hammering we had heard as we walked through the other stations.

We read some verses about Jesus being crucified… for me. All things I had heard millions of times before….

But, then we were asked to take our name tag off and walk to a table with two bowls on it.

We were instructed to take a nail from one of the bowls and dip it in the “blood” in the second bowl… then nail our name-tag to the cross.

There it was.

I’ve gone through powerful exercises where we nail the things that distract us from Jesus to the cross.

I’ve written down the various ways I get caught up in sin and nailed it to a cross.

But, never have I experienced such a profound moment of taking my name… and literally nailing it to the cross.

Last Wednesday night with the youth group, my husband asked the kids…
“What if Jesus hadn’t come and died?”… or
“What if He wasn’t who He said He was?”…
How would our lives be different or impacted?

I’ll tell you right now – I would be heading towards an eternal death…

While Jesus hung on the cross to die – His Father, GOD turned His back. I know that at any moment I can pray and my God hears me... I know without a shadow of a doubt my God is with me and I don’t ever {ever} have to be separated from Him and His help.

***It should have been me.***

It should have been not just my name on that cross… but ME.

But Jesus?

He chose to endure all the suffering and die for me… so I don’t have to.

After everyone nailed their names to the cross, the guards picked it up and put it in a stand. It stood tall… and looked bloody… and had a bunch of names on it…

Cindi.
Lisa.
Steve.
Bill.

Jenni.

What I saw was what should have been ~ but wasn’t.

Jesus paid it ALL out of love for me… for you.