His Breath

It was now about noon, and darkness came over the whole land until three in the afternoon, for the sun stopped shining. And the curtain of the temple was torn in two. Jesus called out with a loud voice, “Father, into Your hands I commit My spirit.” When He had said this, He breathed his last.

-Luke 23:44-46

Can you feel it?

            The ragged, raspy breath on your face?

Filled with pain, pure and purposeful. Exhaling the few and fragrant puffs of air inside His chest. He uses them to shift His weight between the nails, to cry out to the Father, wondering why He is left with silence. He pants and squeezes each bit of Himself into groans that stifle and shout through His body. His spirit is restless, longing to go home yet preparing for the road still to come. In moments, His soul will be released into His Father’s hands, and He will once again begin to fight.

            But the bittersweet breath of this dying deity releases another anthem. Through His struggles to stay upright between the wooden beams, blood-splashed lips rasp out a name.

            Your name.

            He repeats His response, one word speaking for a lifetime.

            Your face is before His bleary eyes. Your laugh bounces through his busted ears. As darkness folds into the sky, as the earth moans and shifts between its heavy weight, He is thinking of you, and the crooked, colorful pieces that compromise your beating heart.

            Your guilt that builds inside you, molding and murky. He wipes it away.

            Your shame in the secret spaces, where you don’t dare look Him in the face to see His disappointment- He paints a coat of white upon it.

            Your condemnation, covered in crimson.

            He remembers your smile as the sun bleeds black. He harbors your hurt and locks it between his ribcage. Your debt is ransomed in His demise.

            One last breath. One last gust of grace, draped upon the weeping wind and pulled across the sands, the waters, the years and miles and generations, gathering strength as His soul slips into eternity. His body sinks into the blade of a badgering soldier, but His heart, His hope, gathers new life as tenderness trickles down His face, drying upon the warm whisper of your name that gently lifts to your trembling, tentative, incredulous belief.

Prayer:

You were pierced and prodded and strung upon a cross for me and all the black filth of my life. You knew You would take the blows for me, and You willingly accepted Your fate. You broke for me. Your spirit shook the heavens and earth, and Your groans called out my name. You saved me from myself, from a lifetime apart from You. Let me remember. Let me call upon Your blood-stained name and receive everlasting joy and peace and grace with You. Amen.