He made them.

He made the brambles and the thorn bushes that later became His crown. He made the forests filled with trees, which became the wood that made His cross. He made the metals and the minerals such as iron, replete in the earth, and able to be forged and hammered into tools and weapons, like the nails that pierced His hands and feet. He made every creature alive, from the largest thundering beasts, to the smallest, creeping critters, including the coccoid scale insects, one of which, the kermes, can be dried out, ground into a powder, and turned into scarlet dye to make beautiful robes for Kings to wear. He spoke that creature into existence, and then later was draped with just such a scarlet robe, by mockers at His trial.

The mouths that blasphemed Him? He made them.

The hands that abused Him? He formed them.

The hearts and minds that rejected Him, hated Him, and demanded His death? He breathed life into them.

I thought about that this past Lord’s Day, while John Harrington was preparing our minds for the Lord’s Supper. He mentioned the roughness of the wooden cross that He carried on His back, and the piercing of the nails into His hands and feet, and then it hit me: The Lord made the wood, and He made the nails. All that we see—the whole world around us—is here because God spoke it into existence. He created it all, then later became a Man, to suffer at the hands of His own creation. He made it all, and then came to die. He made us, knowing we would kill Him, and yet still He came. Why?

To save us from the punishment we deserve for killing Him.

~Matthew