When you look at the cross, do not stop at the bloody wounds that we opened in the body of Christ. If you stop there, you will only see the evil we did to the Son of God while He was human, alive, tender and vulnerable. The evil we did to Him is what occurred on the skin of reality. Reality, however, does not consist of a single layer. Reality has depth. Its depth comes from multiple layers. Different stories unfold on the different layers of reality. The story that is unfolding on the skin of reality is different than the stories unfolding on the subcutaneous layers of reality beneath the skin. Therefore, when you look at the cross, look through the bloody wounds we opened in the body of Christ. They are windows. Look through them to see that His most sacred heart is still filled to the brim with His love for us. Buckets of blood spilled through the wounds we opened in His body with lash, thorns, nails and spear but not a drop - not a single drop - of His love for us. As we imposed our cross upon Him, He clung to His love for us, held tight and did not let go. He clung to His love for us with the iron grip of a drowning man who clings to a life preserver during a storm after His ship has sunk. Unless you use His bloody wounds as windows, your understanding of the Cross is incomplete and distorted. The survival of His love for us is the guarantee that He left us that the love note delivered to us at Bethlehem was genuine. It it were counterfeit, His love for us would have faded as we tortured Him and died when we killed Him. But it did not. It survived. Its survival is the victory that the Son of God won for us. The survival of his love for us is the sweetness of paradise. It draws the children of Adam and Eve to paradise as honey draws bees to the hive. When I understand the sweetness of paradise, I exclaim to my self, "Where do I sign up?" "How do I enlist?" How do I join the kingdom of this God whose love for me is indestructible?"