His eyes snapped open. His heart was pounding. Excitement, wonder, peace, awe filled his body. He laid there thinking and feeling with an intensity he had never experienced before. He didn’t want it to end. Ever.

He reached for his phone and its glow illumined a human face. He texted, “Jesus just talked to me!”

“YGTBKM! What did he say?”

“Adam, I love you.”

He had started going to youth group with the guys. It felt good. Casual. And He had developed a serious curiosity about Jesus. And the girls were chill.

It was intense this time. They were talking about an eye-popper from the Bible:

I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. (Galatians 2:20)

It had that word: crucify. He knew that’s what happened to Jesus. You see him hanging on a cross in all those horror flicks, usually before somebody gets hacked up by the evil dude. Usually lots of blood. Basic. More stupid than scary.

The guy went into the gory detail about the crucifixion. That was a real horror show. He was apparently betrayed by one of his followers. Then things got nasty. He was brutalized by the Romans. Torn-up, whipped and beaten. He was spit on and mocked and then nailed him to a wooden cross. Real bad.

The head guy, Pilate, worked hard to let him go. He seemed to see through the power plays of Jesus’ enemies. But the Romans, with all his imperial power, couldn’t stand against the mob. They started shouting, “Crucify him! Crucify him!” Intense. Then they absolutely, completely rejected Jesus: “We have no king but Caesar!” Ouch.

He thought about the times he felt picked on in elementary school. He learned real fast, you either rose to the battle and become part of the top or you were just picked on. No fun.

Pilate seemed to be trying to find a way to get Jesus out of the mess. But Jesus just took it. It was if he was daring Pilate to do his worst as the crowd pressed him. He did, giving him to those brutal soldiers. But it wasn’t enough for the crowd. “Crucify him!” And then he nailed him. To a cross. For real. And he hung there. And died.

“…who loved me and gave himself for me.”

That was the point of it all somehow. “Jesus loved me.” He thought. “He gave himself for me.”

Nobody had really ever given him anything. Well, his mom, of course. But that doesn’t really count, does it? Moms are supposed to do that.

He remembered the time his mom gave him that stupid shirt thinking it was “cool.” He also remembered how he blew her off and told her she was stupid. “I’m a jerk. She doesn’t deserve that.”

He thought about his confusing feelings toward his mom. Sometimes he felt like she was just intrusive. Always seemed to be invading his space. It really nutted him up. And he let her know it.

He really was a jerk. A lot of the time. He was down with his friends, but he treated lots of people with a cool indifference trying to make them realize he was over them, better than them. What a jerk. He didn’t like that feeling.

But Jesus, for some reason, allowed the bad guys to brutalize, and nail him. To put him on that cross. And he did it because he loved me?

Weird. He didn’t get it.

After youth group he hung out for a while and then went home. His mom was already in bed. He fired up his PS5 and played some Grand Theft Auto. The action wasn’t serving up the rush for some reason. He got bored, and shut it down. He went to bed.

Sometime in the night, he heard him. “Adam, I love you.”