Eye opening moment

Though I've heard the story of Christ's death and resurrection process 100s of times in my life, I don't think it ever really set in until I read about it again last night. I'm in the process of reading the book, "Vintage Jesus" by Mark Driscoll. He gave a pretty vivid description of what Jesus went through. He describes the various stages of the crucifixion process...and he described it as such.

"A crucified person could hang on the cross for days, passing in and out of consciousness as their lungs struggled to breathe..."

In reference to the scourging that would have preceeded the crucifixion, "Jesus' hands would have been chained aboe his head to expose his back and legs to an executioner's whip...At the end of some straps were heavy balls of metal intended to tenderize the body...Some of the straps had hooks made of either metal or bone that would have sunk deeply into the shoulders, back, buttocks, and legs of the victim..." and "...sunk deeply into the tenderized flesh...rip the skin, muscle, tendons adn even bones..."

"Jesus then had a crown of lengthy thorns pressed into his head...blood began to flow down Jesus' face, causing his hair and beard to be a bloodied matted mess...Jesus' robe was then used as the pot in a gambling dice game."

At the site of the crucifixion, "...they pulled Jesus' beard out - an act of ultimate disrespect in ancient cultures..." On top of all this, Jesus had "...five to seven inch, rough, metal spikes driven into the most sensitive nerve centers on the human body...Jesus was then lifted up, and is cross dropped into a prepared hole, causing his body to shake violently on the spikes...Some victims would become so overwhelmed with pain that they would become incontinent and a pool of sweat, blood, urine, and feces would gather at the base of their cross."

WOW! I couldn't even fathom what I was reading. I knew that the crucifixion was painful, but I didn't even understand the pain that took place outside of the nails in His hands and feet! Immediately, I felt an overwhelming sense of remorse for everything I have done in my life because He went through all of this for me! For you! For all of us!