The tempter approached
and said,
“If you are the Son of
God,
command that these
stones
become loaves of
bread.”
He said in reply,
‘One does not live by bread alone,
but by every word that comes forth
from the mouth of God.’”
And the
Word was with God,
and the
Word was God,
and the
Word became flesh
and dwelt
among us,
felt, among
us, emotion raw and real:
joy,
sorrow, anger, fear,
and agony
as only flesh can feel,
when His
heart was breaking,
breath
shallow, hands shaking,
and it
seemed like even His soul was aching,
even unto
death,
but there
was no one awake with Him—
His friends
were sleeping
while he
was sobbing, weeping,
sweating
blood at the thought
of His own
blood seeping into wood
where nails
are keeping Him pinned,
outstretched,
suffocating, bleeding
that
covenantal blood
that our
souls needed—
even
knowing that
didn’t make
it easy.
At the
thought of death,
He started
pleading, praying
over and
over saying,
“Take this cup away from me.
Let this
cup pass from me,”
yet he also
recalled, in the desert,
the devil’s
blasphemy:
One word,
and angels could save you.
One word,
you could make bread from stone.
One word of subjugation
and you could have this world for
your own.
But even
after forty days of fasting,
He refused
to stoop to reaching and grasping,
not seeking
equality with the Everlasting,
even at the
hour of death, was asking,
asking that it wouldn’t come to pass,
adding “not
my will but yours be done.”
The eternal
Word, Logos, God the Son,
Who was
there when time itself had begun,
sought permission not to die,
but knowing
well the reason why He had to,
and knowing
the Father’s will
allowed
himself to be captured
stripped, whipped,
beaten, tortured, killed.
Even so, he
was terrified,
but even
though he wept and cried
and trembled
at the fear he felt inside
the only
words he spoke were prayers:
Prayer,
And the angels
brought comfort.
Prayer,
And the
bread became flesh.
Prayer
That in the
final hour,
it was to
the higher power
to Whom He’d
acquiesce.
And as the night
drew on
and His
friends awoke, the crowd approached,
and the traitor,
with a loveless kiss,
broke His
heart one final time.
Then the Word
spoke:
“Shall I
not drink the cup
that the
Father has given me?”
Thus he
accepted His coming calamity,
Fearfully,
sorrowfully,
but no
longer in agony.
Like a lamb
led to slaughter, onward to Calvary
he
willingly trod,
the Word-Become-Flesh,
and the Word
was with God.
Beautiful.
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