He cannot do anything deliberate now. The strain of His whole weight on His outstretched arms hurts too much. The pain fills Him up, displaces thought, as much for Him as it has for everyone else who has ever been nailed to one of these horrible contrivances, or for anyone else who dies in pain from any of the world’s grim arsenal of possibilities. And yet He goes on taking it in. It is not what He does, it is what He is. He is all open door: to sorrow, suffering, guilt, despair, horror, everything that cannot be escaped, and He does not even try to escape it, He turns to meet it, and claims it all as His own. This is mine now, He is saying; and He embraces it with all that is left in Him.

The world He claims, claims Him. It burns and stings, it splinters and gouges, it locks Him round and drags Him down. His despair is unfathomable.

#Easter2023, 18/42