The Sayings of the Cross

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“A crown of thorns, really? Do they have any idea what they are doing? The sign of futility and the curse God placed on the ground because of sin? There, now, it fits perfectly, at least when the thorns have pierced Your skin so it sits better. The purple drops of blood running into Your eyes will have to do instead of jewels. You do know they will worship all this too one day, right? That a crucifix will take the place of saving faith for many? It’s all wrong, You should pluck it off while Your hands are still free. These fools think they are mocking You when in fact they are setting You up for the greatest institutional system of false worship in the history of the world. Hic corpus Meus est, except it is not even Your body anymore, it will belong to the purveyors of Paradise, as salvation for sale by the shilling, absolution for oblation. No, they know exactly what they are about, and they will perish eternally for it. You should –“ 

“Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.”

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“Ah, an actual guilty criminal here beside You. Is this what You are dying for? Even in his final moments he is wretched, unpitiable, grasping, subtle. He knows he is getting what he had coming for a very long time. It’s the Law, right? You keep the rules, God smiles on you; you break them and you get His frown. That is why this whole business of the Incarnation can never work. That is why there can never be any real redemption, because the moment You give these mendicants free will again they will scuttle off to the first dung-hill they find opportunity for. And when they have smeared it on their faces they will be back again, whining for forgiveness as if it were the first time. ‘Lord, remember me,’ he says, but how long will he remember You? Don’t You think back to the pillars of smoke and fire at Sinai, and how good it must have felt to blast people for their unbelief? Blast them again now, unless becoming fully Man has changed something in You for good, and unless You truly are unholy too now. Unless You would truly rather -“

“Truly I say to you, today you will be with Me in Paradise.“

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“There she is, the one who gave You birth. Now You know where all this weakness comes from. Why You fell in the garden, why You cried out to escape all this, why You sweated great drops of blood. It was her humanity that held You back, surely. As she held You back at the wedding in Cana and as she held You back when You were teaching in the house. Now she knows what the old man meant when he said that a sword would pierce her own soul someday. Mary they call her, bitter as Naomi was bitter, broken as Rachel was broken. As every person has felt who has ever loved their own flesh and blood, only to have them ripped away by the unfeeling hand of God. Truly You said that You came to bring a sword to this world and not peace. But how will anyone ever follow You if indeed they must hate those they are closest to? You can see through the veil into eternity, but they cannot. And whenever one of them finds themselves alone as You are alone right now, they will curse You forever. If only You had -“

“Woman, behold your son! Behold your mother.”

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“After all this sophistry and all this posturing, what You are proposing is a theological impossibility. Know You not? And who knows it if not You? It was by Your Word that this whole world was created, this whole cosmos, everything that is. Nay, You are the very Word become flesh, if indeed such a thing could be. How then can there come such a thing as the death of God? Will that not be in effect the death of all being, the end of all things as they are? And the great tragedy of all this is that You will never know it. One millisecond after You slip beneath that surface when You take that last breath – You who breathed into Man that very first breath in the Garden of Eden – the fabric of all Creation will begin to fray, and all of it will descend into that raw chaos and horror which in Your ministry You preached as Hell. And You will have died for what? Well does the Father know this, and well does the Spirit know it, but remember You laid aside some of Your knowledge when You took on flesh, and so it seems that You do not know it, You who of all involved should have known. Forsaken? You do not yet know the meaning of the word. What if He -“

“My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?”

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“Need. You have unmet need. Is this not the greatest irony in all of redemptive history? Jehovah Jireh, The Lord Will Provide, the source of all good things for those who love and obey You, has unmet need. Noah’s Ark when the Flood was coming. Abraham’s home after all his wanderings. Moses’ Rock in the wilderness. Elijah’s food and drink when his will to live was gone. David’s strong protector in the midst of battle. Will You not have to go back and apologize to all of them? And what of those who stand looking up at You now? Do You not hear what the high priests say, the spiritual leaders of Israel? ‘He saved others, but He cannot save Himself.’ If You would even now call the twelve legions that are at Your disposal, if You were to come down from this Roman cross and declare Yourself the actual king of the Jews and defeat their actual enemies and do what they have actually been waiting for You to do these four centuries, they would surely believe in You, from the greatest to the least. Did you not prophesy of the terrible punishment that would come upon the people of God for their rejection of You? Here at the end of all things, whose fault is that really, theirs or Yours? What if You –“

“I thirst.”

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“You cannot do this thing. Or, if You insist by divine right that You can do it, You ought not do this thing. Become sin? You are Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God Almighty; the whole earth is full of Your glory. Where then would be the dividing line between good and evil, light and darkness, life and death? You are that dividing line and well do we both know it. Well do we both know why You hesitated in the garden, torn between obedience and horror. Well do we both know why You were betrayed by one who was closest to You. Well do we both know why every single one of Your disciples fled in abject fear and despair, and the gates of Hell triumphed over Your little Church for the first but certainly not the last time. For You to take on sin, to be hung on a tree as one cursed, will be the last death-knell of a movement that was doomed before it ever began. Shall men truly ever become the children of God? Was that not their very first sin, when they at once knew their own nakedness and hid themselves from You because of their cosmic treason? And now would You elevate them to divinity by lowering Yourself to their condemnation? You cannot, You ought not, You shall not -“

“It is finished.“

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“And now, if You were telling the truth and You truly did seek to become a high priest who could sympathize with Your people, the fateful moment has come. You are here. The point at which every human being must arrive, save Enoch and Melchizedek and Elijah and anyone else who bought God off somehow with their personal holiness. The end. The last breath. The last glimpse of light. The last hope. The last chance to find a way to do what You have been doing all of Your thirty-three years: Keeping Yourself alive. Or was that not what You have been doing? Why then did You not cast Yourself off the Temple heights for the angels to catch You, as was promised in the Scriptures? Why did You not succumb when they sought to stone You, but instead You walked through their midst? Would not either of those deaths have been preferable to this one? Yet here You are at last, and by Your own words You shall surely be judged: for You are indeed now forsaken. Stop pretending for the first time in Your ministry, and take on that truest mantle of humanity with which I promise You every human being will be able to finally identify: Despair. Taste it, know it, breathe it in, become it. There is no dawn coming after this night, either for You or for the ones on whose behalf You still suffer so. Even now You could choose to keep Yourself alive, yea even to become the life of the world, yet You will not, You do not. If You ever loved life or goodness or beauty or joy, if You ever told the truth with Your actions, if You ever loved God with all Your heart and soul and mind and strength and Your neighbor as Yourself, reconsider. Could You not still-“

“Father, into Your hands I commit My spirit.“

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Holy Week, 2026

Jeremy Vogan