The Nailer

By Guy K. Henry

www.guyhenry.com 

 

“It’s my job,” the Soldier told himself. He repeated this to himself every morning. Yet the job disturbed him. He coped with it by sticking its memories into different compartments of his mind. “Besides, these people are law breakers, they deserve what they get.”

In spite of his efforts, the day-to-day gore of the crucifixions intruded into his personal thoughts. His job as nailer never grew easier. Often he found himself massaging phantom pains in his wrist. They came from each time he swung that heavy hammer and drove the iron stakes into the wrists and ankles of prisoner after prisoner. The blood stopped bothering him, but the cries of agony never left him.

Most of the time the condemned would unknowingly make his job easier. He’d yell profanities and insults at him. That would make him angry. He’d use that anger to wield the hammer, and before he’d have a chance to think very hard, the job would be done.

This day was going to be his hardest. He waited at the top of the hill and watched as the larger than usual crowd followed the condemned man.

It was a rare occasion that the captain spoke to the nailer. If he did it was in the form of an order barked at him. The most frequent order was “Hurry it up!”  Today he broke the routine. His captain walked up to him and cupped his hand to the nailer’s ear. “This man has done nothing wrong,” he whispered, “He’s a good and innocent man.”

The nailer drew back, “But then why?”

“Shhhhh,” the captain hissed, “don’t ask any questions.”

His voice was that of a seasoned Roman captain, yet his face was that of a very troubled man.

The nailer dreaded each step of the approaching crowd, for he knew that this one was going to be very difficult.

Despite his wishes the beaten prisoner arrived. His heavy cross, which had followed behind him, was dropped to the ground with a thud. The solders shoved the innocent man to the ground and held him down. They positioned his wrists onto the beams of the cross and waited for the nailer to do his job.

The nailer hesitated. His captain, face still very troubled, waved his hand on front of him, urging him to hurry.

The prisoner lay on the rough wood of the cross. He was silent. The nailer knelt by his wrist and secretly wished the man would cuss him and give him a small amount of relief.  The condemned man was still. Strangely it seemed as though the soldiers who held him down were not needed.

He made the mistake of looking into the eyes of this man. Instead of seething arrows of hatred he was met with eyes filled with warmth and love. He had never before seen such an expression on this hill.

His hand shook as he brought the hammer crashing down on the spikes. He cried as the man lay there, obviously feeling the horrible pain, but still looking at him with the most gentle and loving expression. Even then the guiltless prisoner did not speak.

How he wished this situation wasn’t real. How he wished he could be sitting at this prisoner’s feet and listening to this man’s wonderful teachings instead of driving iron spikes through them.

The nailer stepped back, his horrible job done. There were other prisoners that day. As he attended to each of them, his mind was elsewhere. He kept looking up at the innocent man, high up on the cross. His eyes went from the innocent’s warm eyes to the cold spikes he had driven so recently.

Then the guiltless man said something that penetrated his soul, “Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do.”

The nailer cried as the righteous man’s love and words reached him at the same time.

---------

 

I fear that I have understated the passion of that moment. More than blood flowed down the beams of the cross. Love flowed too. Forgiveness was found there.

For as long as I can remember, I have daily been choosing to do things I know are wrong. I find the truth in my Bible, and yet I choose to do wrong. The name for that is sin, and I’ve accumulated lots of it.

I hate it that because of that sin, I have become the nailer. I have become the reason that those spikes were driven into him that day.

I have wished that there could be some other way, but there isn’t.

In the midst of a place of hatred and defiance, Jesus shines love on me. Jesus takes my sin off of my shoulders and holds it with him on that cross. It no longer belongs to me. Jesus endured the horror of the cross because that is the only way that I could ever experience relief from my sin.

Three days later Jesus defeated death and was alive again. Just as amazing as Jesus’ renewed life is the fact that he was no longer carrying my sin.

“Jesus, where is my sin?” I ask.

Jesus smiles at me with love, “Sin, what sin?”

 

------

Just like me, you the reader are a nailer too. My sin and your sin are the reason why Jesus went to that cross. Won’t you let him lift that sin from you?

 

Acts 16:31 “And they said, Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved, and thy house.”

 

1 John 4:19 “We love him, because he first loved us.”

 

Rom 5:10  “For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life. “

 

 

1 John 1:9 “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”