It was all real.

There was a man named Jesus, this much Tacitus will tell us. He was called the Christ, according to Josephus.

His feet swept the dust and sunk in the dirt.  His hands, cracked and lined with age, held the dead and dying, the loved and the lying.

Where he went, the people followed, and where he went, the spirit surged, and where he went, the father smiled because it was all real.

And because it was all real, our debt that was due came due, and it called.  Its payment had to be real, and the payment had to be permanent, and the payment had to be rendered. That which was wholly unclean had to be made holy and clean.

So, the man named Jesus, the one who, out of his parted lips, came the words I am, confessed that it was all real.

So, the beatings were real, and the lashes were real, and the blood was real, and the thorns were real, and the mocking was real, and the shame was real, and the scorn was real, and his mother’s pain was real, and his brothers’ pain was real, and his pain was real.

And the cross, not old or rugged, but fresh and ruthless, not gilded, but jagged, not clean, but cutting, was real.

The celebrated became lonely, and the skeptic believed. His death long predicted and predestined, became real.

There at the fulcrum of time, was nothing…

And it was all real.

See from his head, his hands, his feet, sorrow and love flow mingled down.

Did e’er such love and sorrow meet, or thorns compose so rich a crown.