When I was younger, my mum returned from an event she had to attend, she walked into her room and she met her foundation bottle missing and the culprit had not just taken it away, they had played with it in the room, smeared it all around their pillow and walls and basically just left the scene a little obvious that someone had been there.

I remember she called my brother and I and asked who did it, we both said it wasn’t us and sadly we were the only children in the house and had access to her room so yes, you can imagine how livid she got when no one owned up to it.

My mum whooped my brother and I that day and till today, I’ve never cried like the way I cried that day. My mum said she was going to beat us both until the person who did it confessed.

After several minutes of tears and beating on my body with a very, very low pain threshold, I didn’t know when I screamed “I did it”. She stopped and she pet my brother and told him to go. As my mother’s custom when she beats you, you’ll sit and think of what you’ve done and she’ll also give you scriptures you should think on as you meditate through your actions.

I didn’t care what I had to do, all I wanted was to not be beat again and so I didn’t even think that I had lied, because really, I actually didn’t do it.

I remember how angry I got over the years every time I thought back to that day, how I took the blame and label for something I did not do, and to be honest, didn’t have the capacity to do. This morning I was reading 2 Corinthians 5:21~ “God made Him who had no sin to be sin for us …”

I sat meditating and I think of the fact that God did not just put the sin on Jesus, God actually made Jesus that sin. Jesus in that moment of death had a sin identity despite the fact that Jesus was sinless and could not even sin because He was God. And for a few moments, I remembered the scripture that tells us that we don’t have a high priest that cannot be felt with the feelings of our infirmity and it rang true, that in the moment I received someone else’s pain, Jesus could fully relate and knew exactly what that felt like.

But hey, with Jesus, there was a purpose, the same verse continues to say “…so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God”.

The ball stopped rolling when it got to Jesus. He didn’t refuse the blame or try to toss or roll the sin to someone else. I think Jesus remembered what blame games did before His time. He remembered how Adam, Eve and subsequently all of creation suffered for the blame thrown around in the garden of Eden until it reached the serpent who owned the blame and subsequently the power.

Jesus did not have to take our sin on Himself. Worse, He did not have to become the sin, but He did, so that you and I will be made Gods righteousness.

Sometimes, the things we will have to do for the sake of another believer or potential believer will seem like a violation of self, but will be worth it in the end.

I further realised, that maybe the cry of Jesus at Golgotha was not even about a fear of death, but the blame He had to endure on His innocent self. He wasn’t complaining but His words were almost like “Abba, is this what I get for being sinless? it hurts, it sucks, I wish it didn’t have to be, NONETHELESS, not my will but Yours be done”.

Jesus submitted Himself to sin that was not His own. He owned a sin identity that was far from His true nature. He suffered a death that we should have.

We are of all people, most blessed.

My experience was just for my brother and I know how much that hurt, as compared to Jesus who did it for the entire world. Wow.

I should note though, that I don’t subscribe to foolishly admitting to things you did not do, but realising that sometimes, as the spirit leads us, the ball should stop in our court.