LifeForce

They took Him away. Hated. Shunned. Turning their faces aside because the form and shape of Him was so gruesome. Unrecognizable.

But inside, deep down where it counts, where the core of all decisions and choices are made, in the center of His being, was a Man who knew exactly how they felt. He recognized every sadness they’d ever dealt with, knew depression and mental anguish, anxiety, panic.

They didn’t look at Him, but He looked at them. With love in His eyes. Compassion. Mercy. For the very people who through fear and greed, lust for power and things, reasoned with themselves it was all God’s fault.

God did this. Save Yourself!

Yet beaten, bruised, mauled by their actions, He submitted, willing to take the blame for all the horrible things they’d ever done, ever would do. For generations of men led astray by the deceit of darkness. For those who worshipped Him not, had no respect or regard for His actions. Those who debased and devalued this moment in time.

For them He bore it all. All. Every. The lot. The entire weight of people with no clue that the Man they sought to extinguish was the very One who could save them.

They thought they knew better, thought they’d figured it out, charted their paths, set their feet the direction they wanted to go, when all along what they were walking on was shifting, sending them deeper and deeper into the sands of time where once moored, they’d never get out. Never.

Unless at the bottom, stuck in place, faced with their own demise, they’d look up and see He did this for them. For their sins. For their mistakes. For their problems, turmoils, and troubles.

For the kid who ran away from home. For the child molested by his father, brother, neighbor. For the teen who got into drugs and grew up addicted. For the man in prison who stole or robbed or murdered. Yes, even for him. For those who’ve done the worst, most horrible crimes society can imagine.

As well as the housewife, who yelled at her husband. The husband who worked too late and swung at her. The children who viewed it and crouched together, eyes wide, wishing it’d stop.

The sailor, the soldier, the hero, the fallen. Those who died in wars, sacrificing themselves for the greater good.

The victims of holocausts whose lives were snuffed out without care.

The cancer sufferer. The cancer survivor. Anyone captured by decay and disease. Accident or misfortune. Natural calamity. Complete disaster.

Ignorance.

He didn’t limit His act to the church goer, the saint, the clean-skinned college grad, the upright in their pressed pants and shiny shoes. This Man surrendered Himself to false judgment though all of these people and millions more, born and unborn, turned aside, gave Him the cold shoulder, discounted His death as just another one of those. Something ugly and awful and too hard to look at.

They took Him away, but they couldn’t put out his Lifeforce. They had no idea that what looked like the end wasn’t the end at all because the power behind Him still burned, an unquenchable force capable in one instant of time of wiping the slate clean for the entire world.

The entire world! Those same ones who think they know what they’re doing. That still today look another direction rather than at some poor Man who died so tragically. That fashion for themselves gods of silver and gold, paper and plastic. Stone gods who without eyes or ears or mouths can’t do anything more than stare back unfeeling, unmoving. Empty vacuous air without any ability to heal and mend.

What they meant for loss was instead their gain. What they shed to bring death, instead gives life. What they tried to extinguish is instead brighter than it ever was and able to fix whatever is broken. It’s a task already completed. A victory already won. Success. Triumph. The big prize.

Accomplished while people weren’t looking. By a Man who looked like nothing but can change your life into something. If you’ll believe it.

*This is the author's paraphrase of Isaiah 53:2-5.


----------
Suzanne D. Williams, Author
www.suzannedwilliams.com
www.feelgoodromance.com