I can in no way convey the thoughts of Christ while He was dying on the cross, but I'm posting this as a way to help myself and others gain perspective of what it might have been like for Christ. My theology and understanding of the Bible and the Gospel are far from extraordinary, so I hope you'll forgive (and correct) any errors that I may have, or segments that I may have left out.
Above is the sky, gray. Below is a crowd of people. The pain blurs your eyes, and it’s not just a single pain—it’s a pain unevenly distributed throughout your entire body, peaking especially in your hands and feet. Your back aches from lashes. Your scalp stings. The pain doesn’t go away, the wounds don’t even begin to heal because there isn’t any time for the wounds to begin to heal. You can’t lie down, or crawl into a corner and die. No. You’re upright and the whole public is watching you.
Your head rolls side to side, your cheek brushing against the splintered wood—the wood that you carried. Every time you move your head, the thorns dig deeper into your scalp, creating angry piercings into your head that bleed down your face. You can’t even wipe away the blood; your hands are stapled to the wood.
The crowd jeers, yells. They are watching you die. The pain grows stronger with every minute, and you look at the people. Perhaps worse than the crowd taking pleasure in this event are seeing the people who are not. Perhaps your loved ones try to defend you, and the soldiers mercilessly throw them back. You can’t bear to your loved ones cry, to fight for you, to be pulled back. Oh, God, don’t let them be in pain, too.
And that’s just it. God. Your entire life’s mission, all of your duties and hardships—and for what? For a being that seemed to disappear. A being—your God, your Father—has desolated you. The pain in your chest, in your soul, stings worse than the physical pain you are experiencing.
For 3 hours—180 minutes—you endure this torture.
Finally, in a loud voice, you cry out, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”
And what do they do? They give you a drink. They give you vinegar.
The pain, the despair—you are the only being in your world. No one else can or will experience this magnitude of humiliation or pain or despair. Yet this is not the end. No, you’re far from the end.
You yell once more, and everything suddenly goes black.
