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Jesus walked through the meadow, the cold night air caressing His face, the hem of His tunic brushing against wild grass and scattered stone. His feet were sore — calloused, dust-stained, undeniably human.
How does it feel to be divine, and yet human?
To have shaped the dust of the earth —
and now feel it cling to Your own skin.
To have spoken light into existence —
and now walk beneath it with tired feet.
He kept walking.
The disciples were somewhere behind Him, their voices dim now, swallowed by the dark. They loved Him. He knew that. They had left nets, tables, families. They followed.
And yet.
There is a particular solitude in loving beyond what can be returned.
He loved them with an eternal measure — with the same love that had once hovered over formless waters, the same love that had called Abraham, that had spoken through prophets, that had woven stars into the firmament.
They loved Him with human hearts.
Beautiful. Sincere. Limited.
He swallowed against the tightening in His throat.
He had tried to tell them.
First gently — through parables, through Isaiah’s wounded servant, through hints wrapped in mercy. Then that afternoon He had decided to tell them plainly: the Son of Man must suffer. Must be rejected. Must be killed.
As the words left His lips, shadows crossed their faces.
Fear sealed their understanding.
Once again.
They did not step closer. They did not ask how to carry it with Him.
They grew quiet.
And that hurt — it hurt more than He could possibly tell — because He Himself knew how beautiful and precious friendship was. But again, He had been the One who had chosen to befriend creatures who could never possibly return a love as vast as the one He carried beneath the beating of His heart.
He drew a deep breath and walked on.
He was not alone. Never truly alone.
His heavenly Father was with Him, and His human Mother understood him more than anyone.
Her silence was deep. Her gaze, knowing. She carried mysteries in her heart the way the earth carries seeds — hidden, waiting, faithful. In her presence, something within Him rested. She did not try to rescue Him from the Cross. She did not flinch at the word suffering.
She believed.
But the world was vast.
And humanity — so beloved — was still learning how to see.
The meadow opened before Him, silvered by moonlight. He slowed, lifting His eyes toward the sky.
The stars burned with ancient brilliance.
He knew them. By name.
He had spoken them into existence. Through Him all things had been made. In Him all things held together — the heavens stretched above Him, the soil beneath His feet, the fragile hearts of the men who could not yet understand why their Messiah spoke of dying.
A tremor passed through Him.
Not doubt.
Never doubt.
But the weight of what love would require.
Six months.
Six months until the hands He had knit together in the secret darkness of their mothers’ wombs — hands He had designed for tenderness, for bread-breaking, for blessing — would curl around cold iron and drive it through His own flesh.
Six months until the eyes He had colored in infinite shades — blue, amber and olive, dark as fertile soil, bright as desert sky — eyes He had filled with the capacity to behold beauty — would harden with contempt and look upon Him as though He were unworthy to live.
Six months until the steady, crystalline gaze of His Mother — the gaze that had once searched His infant face in wonder — would stand beneath that wood, submerged in a sea of grief no human language could measure, yet refusing to look away.
Six months until every hidden sin — even the ones not yet committed — would rest upon His shoulders.
He blinked quickly, willing the tears not to fall.
He did not regret becoming flesh.
He did not regret loving them.
But oh, how it hurt to love so much — and not be understood.
To offer a heart and know it will be crushed.
To stretch out hands already aware they will not be held in comfort.
He felt it then, that quiet ache beneath His ribs — The cost of loving beyond what can be returned — of offering everything to hearts not yet able to grasp the depth of the gift.
A tear escaped anyway, tracing warm against cool night air.
The beauty of the sky almost undid Him. The same stars that had once leapt into being at His word now watched Him stand in mortality, breathing through lungs that would one day collapse under the weight of crucifixion.
He let the tears come.
The Son of God wept — not because He was uncertain, but because He had chosen a heart that could break.
Slowly, His knees gave way.
The grass bent beneath Him. The earth — His earth — received Him.
He pressed His palms into the soil, fingers trembling slightly, and bowed His head.
“Father…”
The word broke from Him — not ceremonious, not distant — but raw.
“They do not understand.”
His voice was barely more than breath.
“They do not see what love requires.”
A shudder moved through Him.
He saw it all — betrayal in a garden, friends asleep in His agony, a kiss that would taste like salt and sorrow. He saw the whip. The thorns. The splinters of the cross biting into torn flesh.
He saw His Mother’s anguished face.
He saw every sin — not abstract, not faceless — but intimate. Personal. Chosen.
He saw the quiet lies told in dimly lit rooms. The loneliness that drove people to search for warmth in places that would only wound them deeper.
He saw children.
Eyes once clear and luminous, made to behold wonder, exposed to shadows before they had learned to name the light.
It pierced Him.
Not only because it violated purity — but because it robbed them of joy and fractured their hearts.
He saw wars ignited by pride.
Borders drawn in blood.
Young men taught to hate strangers they had never met.
He saw mothers clutching lifeless children in lands torn apart by ambition and power.
He saw the earth itself groaning — forests stripped bare, waters poisoned, creation subjected to human greed. The world He had once called “very good” trembling under the weight of misuse.
He saw the hidden addictions.
The quiet despair.
The nights where people stared at ceilings and wondered why they still felt empty after consuming everything except Him.
He saw all sins,
Ours.
“Father,” He repeated, as if anchoring Himself.
The weight of it pressed against His human heart until it felt as though it might rupture before the nails ever touched Him.
“And still… I choose them.”
The words trembled.
“I choose them.”
He pressed His forehead to the ground.
“If this is what love demands… then let Me love to the end.”
His tears fell into the soil — soil He had once formed from nothing — and mingled with it.
Above Him, constellations burned in silent witness.
Below them, the Word made flesh knelt in the dark — holding within His chest a love so vast it would soon be poured out to the last drop.
A chest that ached — because love that saves must first suffer.
And there, in the quiet of the meadow, the Son of God wept for the ones He would die to redeem.
And if the night had ears to hear, it would have heard the steady rhythm beneath His grief:
I would do it again.
For them.
For each one.
For you.