I cannot yet move from the phrase, “Christ died for us.”  How must the angels have felt as they beheld the infinite God who created all the planets and stars hanging, spiked to the tree? I picture them hanging their heads in awe. Even the sun refused to shine as for three hours there was a midday midnight over Golgotha. Not an eclipse because this was the Passover – a full moon festival. God the father hung a veil over the sun for 3 hours! The rumbling earthquake reminds us of the quaking sides of Sinai, whose law put the Son of God here. Who He was, What He was and why He died speak so strongly to me. All that death could mean, Christ endured. But it was a death of unutterable pain, for he was crucified; and what more painful fate than to die nailed to a cross? It was a long protracted death, for he hung for hours, with only his hands and his feet pierced parts, which are far away from the seat of life, but in which are situated the most tender nerves. He suffered a death which for its circumstances still remain unparalleled. It was no speedy blow which crushed the life out of the body, and ended it; but it was a lingering, long, and woeful death, attended with no comforts and no sympathy, but surrounded with scorn and contempt. Picture him! They have hurled him on his back; they have driven nails through his hands and his feet; they have lifted him up. See! They have dashed the cross into its place. It is fixed. The infinite God upon whose shoulders the universe hangs was lifted between heaven and earth as if He were not fit for either. And now behold him! Mark his eyes, all full of tears; behold his head, hanging on his breast. Ah! mark Him, He seems silently to say, “I am poured out like water; all my bones are out of joint; I am brought into the dust of death.” (Ps 22) Hear him, when he groans, “I thirst.” Above all, listen to him, whilst he cries, “My God My God why have you forsaken me?” My words cannot picture him; my thoughts fail to express it. No painter ever accomplished it, nor shall any speaker or writer be able to perform it. Yet I beseech you to regard the Royal Sufferer. See him, with the eye of your faith, hanging on the bloody tree. Hear him cry, before he dies, “It is finished!” Reconciliation is achieved, Christ died for you, and you are “accepted in the beloved.”