It’s difficult to communicate the extent that I deserve this death. How I put off God with excuses and a sort of spiritual back pedalling and tried to carve out from the All-Creator a niche of my own: ‘just these years for me please: that will be enough.’ And even that was a deception—of myself, if never God.

It’s difficult to communicate the extent that I deserve the nails weaving my palms to wood, how debts dictate need for a spear to slide apart my side. To admit this seems masochistic; to be sickly fascinated with the violence of the act. But if this is what happened to God the Son, on the other hand surely we must say not enough. Not nearly.

It’s difficult to communicate the despair of a living without God. Lost in nothing and aching for someone to be saviour. Without reference point, I do not even have the object of the cry: ‘Why have you forsaken me?’

When we, in our mind’s eye, walk around that execution sight, our only conclusion can be one of horror. This certain passage into death is horrific. That I deserve this confronts me with who I am—I am someone who wants God to die. This is what we’ll try to do to God every time.

It’s difficult to communicate what this act means. How hard it is to meditate on, without slipping into platitudes or the placebo of positivity. And yet Jesus became man fixed on this vision, focused on what he had to do. At no point did he turn away from descending to this throne of wood and nails.

In the end, to bring you from deserved death into everpresent life; to bring you from sackcloth to be an heir of creation: this is what God does this once for every time.