THE NAIL

It was the nail that got me.

I had given the children’s Easter devotion before. There’s a very large Easter egg, big enough to contain a baby item, small cup, piece of bread, thorn, scented cloth and various other items associated with the re-telling of the story of why Christ came to earth, His death and resurrection. And there is a nail. A very big nail. A nail not unlike the one that must have been used to nail Christ to the tree for me.

My story nail is, according to my husband, actually a nail used to firmly affix a gutter to a house. It is heavy, about 8 inches long and perhaps as thick as my middle finger.  It gets the kids’ attention.

When I was little, my nail experience was limited to the tiny ones my dad used to put up pictures on the walls of our home or the 2-3 inchers I’d see him use to nail 2 x 4’s together. Every year when I’d hear the story of Christ’s crucifixion I could never quite “get” how that worked with such small nails. Sure, I knew  it must have hurt – after all, merely sticking yourself by accident with a pin hurts – but I thought there must be something I wasn’t quite grasping here.

And of course there was. Roman nails used at the time of Christ were apparently heavy, square shaped, tapered iron spikes, about 3/8“ in diameter and from 5-9 “ long. Romans used them in the execution of “slaves, foreigners, revolutionaries and the vilest of criminals,” (frugalsites.net).  Crucifixion was an excruciatingly painful way to die.

So, yesterday, as I was relating this both horrifying and amazingly marvelous story to a group of Christian school children, I happened to glance at the nail in my hand and the photo of it in my hand up on the big screen at the same time. The nail was in my hand, but the reality was it should have been in my hand.

God used that nail to remind me once again that He sent Christ to die for me, to make a way to Him for me. I am the slave, the foreigner, the revolutionary and the vilest of criminals.  He loved me so much that He suffered the nails meant for me. And so I sing, “Thank you, Lord, for saving my soul; Thank you, Lord, for making me whole; Thank you, Lord, for giving to me; Thy great salvation so rich and free.” (Seth & Bessie Sykes)

“You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, though for a good person someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” Romans 5:6-8