Behold the Cross,
The Sign of Love,
Where the Everlasting God
Has been crushed for us.
Behold the crown upon His brow,
And there the piercing thorns,
The weapons of a twisted world
That wants no king like Him.
Behold the wicked nails,
Driven deep through hands and feet;
The sins of those who love Him
And of those who never knew,
And for love’s sake He receives them.
Behold the spear and ragged wound,
The piercing mark of our treachery;
Here Christ bears the torment
Of poverty and war and death,
And here he drinks its pain.
Behold the crimson blood,
The life of man and God,
The blood that covers all our sins.
Behold the man of all mankind,
The sum of all we are
And all we could have been.
Behold the endless God,
Who drinks humiliation
To save disloyal sons.
Here humanity has been joined
With eternity;
And here we live the life of God.
Our sin has made us cursed in life,
A curse which leads to death.
And Christ has come to taste that death:
Our Blessing drinks our curse.
The curse will break,
The sin will heal,
And death will be undone.
Behold the fall of Death itself,
As in Christ’s death it dies.
Behold the fall of Satan’s power,
Undone by sacrifice.
Behold our freedom in his life,
Our freedom in his death;
Behold our wonder in his grace,
Our ransom, and our rest.
The death that claims him even now
Cannot bind him down.
He lives through all eternity,
And he will live again.
Behold the dawning of our hope
As now he bears the load
Of all we are,
Of all we’ve done,
And all that we will be.
Bruised and torn,
Upon the cross,
Our victory is won.
And now dies the Immortal Christ—
Dies, that we may live.