Silent Murder

I have murdered the one who loves me most.  How can I live on after committing such a deed?  He was the only one who gave me life, gave me a purpose to live.  How am I to live on?
How am I to explain my most heinous crime?  How can I thrust aside the veil that covers my heart and expose my darkest stain to my best friend, my mother, the world?
I shall explain this horrid occurrence.
Once, there lived a man.  Never in his life did he commit a crime.  He never spoke a wrong or hurtful word.  He never did something stupid.  He didn’t slip up.  He was perfect in every way imaginable; in the small and in the large things, he was explicitly flawless.  He loved everyone, even those that the world hated (and had a reason to hate).  He loved the ugly, the murderous, the spiteful, and the foolish.  He loved everyone...including me.
But you see, we didn’t love him.  No, we hated him.  Why?  I’m really not sure.  But we did.
He was tried and convicted of a crime he did not commit.  He was prodded along a path of humiliation, his skin half-missing, torn away, stolen, by the merciless instruments of torment.  They beat him, spit in his eyes, and struck him repeatedly over the head with a wooden staff.  Why?  I’m not really sure.  But we did.
He stumbled along that rugged path, people jeering on every side.  Even those that he’d restored screamed for his execution.  Why?  I’m not really sure.  But we did.
So that bloody man walked the road, every single step more painful than anything ever experienced before or since.  He carried a terribly heavy burden: mankind and all its faults.  Why?  I’m not really sure.  But he did.
As he waited, laid out on the dirt and wood, a soldier lifted a nail and hammer into the air.  He positioned the sharp end on the man’s wrist.  He readied the hammer.
But wait!  The victim, the flawless man– was he not the one who made the veins that brought blood to the hand that afflicted him?  Did he not skillfully weave them together and make them work perfectly?  Think of this: Was he not, in that moment, continually giving the soldier his next heartbeat, his next breath?  He was sustaining the life of his assailant.  Why?  I’m not really sure.  But he did.
This is the most striking object of all: as I look deeply into the face of that soldier, I recognize him.
His face is my own.  His face is your face.  We are all that soldier, nailing our dear Lord to the cross.
That perfect man was suffering, dying, because of me.  I’m responsible for his horrid, unjust death!
How?  Well, he’s dying because of my sin.  My tiniest white lie, my smallest inclination to steal, is enough to condemn me to death.  But, because that man loves me so much, I don’t have to die.  Two thousand years ago, he saved me.  He saved his murderer with his own death.  He loves me, his killer.  Why?  I’m not really sure.  But he does.  
And he always will.  His love is never ending, never wavering, and never absent, not even for the smallest fraction of a moment.  What revelation is this!  He endured the greatest pain for me and for you.  The best part is that he didn’t stay dead.  On the contrary, he’s more alive that I’ll ever hope to be.  He still gives me everything: his strength, love, guidance, peace, mercy, grace...  The list is endless.
And so I ramble through life, directionless without him.  This world is falling, digging, deeper and deeper into its pit of depravity.  Sometimes I fall with them.  Sometimes I dig with them.  It kills me inside but, by some perverse persuasion, I follow them.
Now all the demons look like prophets and I’m living out every word they speak...every word they speak.  Oh, what work there is to be done in me!