Joseph of Arimathea pulled a corpse off a cross with his bare hands.
Blood under his fingernails. The weight of a dead man sagging into his arms.
He wrapped God in linen, pressed the fabric into wounds that were still wet.
Nicodemus brought seventy-five pounds of burial spice. A king's funeral for a man the world just murdered.
They carried Him into a hole in the rock and rolled the stone shut.
And everything you've ever done went in with Him.
Every night you can't sleep because of what you did. Every morning, you can't look in the mirror. The thing you did to her. The thing you did to them. The
lie you've been carrying so long it feels like bone.
The version of you that drinks alone and pretends tomorrow will be different.
That man was buried with Christ.
Stone sealed. Done.
Not managed. Not in therapy. Not on a payment plan with God where you slowly earn your way back. Buried. In a tomb. Under rock. Gone.
Three days of silence. Three days of a cold body in the dark.
Then the stone moved.
And when He walked out, the grave clothes were folded on the slab. He didn't stumble out tangled in death. He left it sitting there like a man who's done
with the clothes he used to wear.
Lazarus needed someone to unwrap him. Death still clung to him even after he was breathing.
Jesus folded His own burial linen and walked out clean.
That's the difference between religion and resurrection. Religion unwraps you slowly. Asks you to manage your sin. Attend the class. Read the book. Try harder next week.
Resurrection says the man who walked into that tomb is dead. The man who walked out doesn't know him.
You're not fixing the old you. The old you is in a sealed tomb in Jerusalem, and he's not coming back.
The man reading this, the one who thinks he's too far gone, you're not too far. You're already buried. The funeral happened two thousand years
ago.
Now get up. The stone's already moved. The linen's already folded.
Walk out.
Crucifix Honey
Every April they sweeten the cross.
Package the blood. Soften the nails.
Put a choir behind the screaming
so it sounds like music.
Crucifix honey.
He died on a garbage hill covered in flies
while Jerusalem ate dinner.
Not in a cathedral.
Not in a painting.
Not in the stained glass window
your grandmother pointed at
when you were six
and told you that man loved you.
On a trash heap.
Outside the city.
Where they dumped dead animals.
Where the dogs came at night.
That’s where God died.
Naked.
Bones showing through His back.
Mouth so dry His tongue stuck to His jaw.
Soldiers underneath Him gambling for His shirt
like it was a scratch-off ticket.
His mother stood there.
Couldn’t touch Him.
Couldn’t hold His hand.
Just watched the boy she nursed in a barn
choke to death on a Roman post
while flies landed on what used to be His back.
And the church put a frame around it.
Sanded down the wood.
Took the splinters out of the cross
and made it smooth enough to hang
around a pretty neck.
We turned the execution of God
into decoration.
The Romans drove the nails.
We gold-plated them.
Crucifix honey.
He sweat blood in a garden
because His body tried to die
before they could kill Him.
And we walk past it every Sunday
like it’s wallpaper.
He carried His own death up a hill
on a back that didn’t have skin on it.
And we put the cross on a bumper sticker
between the stick figure family
and the fish.
He screamed.
And we made it a holiday.
“For a time is coming when people will no longer listen to sound and wholesome teaching. They will follow their own desires and will look for teachers who will tell them whatever their itching ears want to hear. They will reject the truth and chase after myths.”
2 Timothy 4:3-4
For shits and giggles, I decided to see just how hard it would be to replace my birth certificate, Social Security card, AND my marriage license, since Democrats think women are too stupid to figure it out.
Here's how it went:
1. Birth certificate: Contacted the health department of the county where I was born. They OVERNIGHTED a certified copy to me the next day - total cost, $14.
2. SS Card: Contacted Social Security on their site. They asked if I was sure I needed the card, since I 'won't likely be asked for it.' I went ahead and got it - took five business days to arrive - total cost, $0.
3. Marriage License: Went to the 'vital docs' site of the county where we were hitched. Filled everything out online, arrived in three days - total cost, $5.
It cost less than $20 to obtain all three certified/legal documents, and it took less than five business days to receive them. Note: if I had lived where I was born or married, it would have been a day. Tops.
Anyone telling you this is too hard or unfair is lying and hiding the real reason they want to stop Voter ID.
I know you guys knew that already... lol
I've told this story before, but it bears repeating:
Summer of 2024. I was considering turning to God.
Driving down the road, I stopped at a long traffic light, deep in thought about what we had discussed. I wondered, among many other things, why God didn't make Himself more apparent to us.
On the sidewalk next to me, a street preacher suddenly walked up and started preaching.
It was nothing groundbreaking. He said that Jesus loved us, that He wants us to believe and turn to Him, that the consequences of our decisions were eternal. Standard street preacher talking points.
He sounded like he had said what he was saying many, many times. Like he was doing it because he knew he was supposed to. It was hardly his most enthusiastic moment.
But here I was, wondering why Jesus didn't tell me things, and suddenly someone started telling me with a megaphone, a few feet from my car, that He loved me and wanted me to turn to Him.
I believe that God had answered me.
That street preacher may never know how much God used Him in that very moment. But he obviously knew he was supposed to be doing it, as he had done so many times before. And he has remained faithful to it.
When you share the Gospel, when you help someone in need, when you pray for someone, when you reflect God's love in the way you treat your spouse and children, when you demonstrate what it means to be a Christian, God is working through you.
You may never know how many people join His family, or remain in it, as a result of your actions. But rest assured, He's using you to build His Kingdom.
Keep going.
I don't know who needs to hear this, but GET UP. Ask God to breathe His spirit back into you. You've been lying dormant for far too long. Ask Him to restore your creativity, your purpose, your joy, your love, your health, and your sound mind. You've slept long enough in depression, anxiety, overthinking, bitterness, loneliness, grief, brokenness, financial stress, abandonment wounds, relationship trauma, and destructive habits. Today is the last day. GET UP! Get up for your future self. Get up for your kids. Get up for the dreams God placed inside you. Get up and take your life back.
Old Dominion University shooter Mohamed Jalloh:
-Born in Sierra Leone
-Became a naturalized US citizen
-Radicalized by al-Qaeda
-Convicted for providing material support to ISIS
-Sentenced to 11 years in prison
-Released from prison early under Biden
Now watch how quickly this story disappears
I’d pay for the military to drink Dom Perignon and eat beluga caviar by the truckload before I spent one cent on a fake daycare center or public assistance for an illegal immigrant
Regardless of who sits in the Oval Office, I’ll stand with the parents of a murdered child.
I’ll stand on the idea that protecting American citizens comes first.
I’ll stand for our athletes who wore our flag and brought home gold.
I’ll stand against medicalizing kids without parental consent.
These aren’t “policy positions.”
They’re baseline human values.
If your entire political identity is just resist at all costs, even when what you’re resisting is the lowest-hanging fruit for common ground - it betrays your true incentives: power over people. The American people deserve better.