I know this entry comes abit late but I finally managed to get my hands on the copy of the Good Friday Prayer Vigil Guidebook which my church prepared for the prayer services.....I didn't attend the service but there was a prose written in there that was read out to us by the pastor teaching the membership class I attended last Sunday (yes! I finally made the step to transfer my membership to COOS!) which I felt was extremely poignant and well-written. So, here I am...transferring the passage for your reading & reflection.... DEATH BY CRUXIFICTION Try to imagine yourself at Golgotha Hill on Good Friday. The cross is placed on the ground and you are thrown backward with your shoulders against the wood. The legionnaire feels for the depression at the front of your wrist. He drives a heavy, square wrought-iron nail through your wrist and deep into the wood. Quickly, he moves to the other side and repeats the action, being careful not to pull your arms too tightly, allowing you some flex and movement. The cross is then lifted into place and fastened onto the upright set into the hill. Your left foot is pressed backward against the right foot, and with both feet extended, toes down, a nail is driver through the arch of each, leaving your knees flexed. You are now crucified. As you slowly sag down with more weight on the nails in the wrists, excruciating, fiery pain shoots along the fingers and up the arms to explode in your brain. You push yourself upward to avoid this stretching torment. But now you feel the searing agony of the nail tearing through the nerves of your feet. As the arms fatigue, cramps sweep through your muscles, knotting them in deep, relentless, throbbing pain. With these cramps comes the inability to push yourself upward to breathe. Air can be drawn into the lungs but not exhaled. You fight to raise yourself in order to get even one small breath. What follows is hours of limitless pain: cycles of twisting, joint-rending cramps; intermittent partial asphyxiation; searing pain as tissue is torn from your lacerated back as you move up and down against the rough timber. Then another agony begins: a deep, crushing pain within the chest as your heart cavity fills with serum and begins to compress the heart. It is now almost over: the loss of fluids has reached a critical level; the compressed heart is struggling to pump heavy, thick, sluggish blood into the tissues; the tortured lungs are making a frantic effort to gasp in small gulps of air. Finally, you feel the chill of death creeping through your tissues. You welcome its approach. As I read through this passage again, it evokes a certain kind of emotion in me that I am unable to explain. What does it evoke in you? | 
