These were when the world was at its darkest: seeing my dad suffer from cancer and eventually losing him; losing a newborn son; losing Tony's only brother to drug overdose; losing my mom to heart failure; losing my mom-in-law and sis-in-law one month apart; hearing the doctor’s prognosis about my husband’s condition (four times, within a few years, close to dying); and less than a dozen more.
Excruciating—meaning, a combination of extreme agony, unbearable torture, and intense pain—is hardly used in a faith-based life. God’s comforting grace always lifts you up from the pits. That I’ve always believed.
But it was only last Good Friday, in our livestreamed worship service amidst an enhanced community quarantine (ECQ), when I realized why.
From the pulpit, he graphically described how scourging could have damaged Jesus’ shoulders, back, and legs. (A scourge cuts through the skin, and as the blows continue, its ends cut deeper, till blood oozes from the veins. Finally, the skin hangs in ribbons and the entire body is an unrecognizable mass of scrap.)
The savage cruelty continued at His crucifixion.
Can you imagine anything more painful? Excruciating comes from the Latin word excruciare, from cruciare, to crucify. It means, “a pain like the pain of crucifixion.”
The physical pain Jesus endured was surpassed only by the emotional pain He felt at being betrayed by the people He loved and being forsaken by God. And yet, His first words were, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they do.” (Luke 23:34 NKJV)
On that Good Friday, I learned that when I am tempted to use the word excruciating, I will look back to the crucifixion. And I will remember that no human pain can ever be big enough (not even the curse of Covid-19 and the ECQ) to match what Jesus went through for me.
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