Would you take a bullet for me? Thanks!

I’ve heard that question before, and I’m sure you have, too. It’s a measuring stick of how much we love someone, or something. I wouldn’t take a bullet for, say, the student who bad-mouths me in front of a class, but I would for my husband or even my dog. I’d probably want to know how badly I’d be shot. If it’s in the foot I might answer differently than if it was a direct hit in my chest. Hopefully, I’ll never be faced with having to answer this question as anything more than a hypothetical, philosophical conundrum.


But, the question came into my head this past Sunday, Palm Sunday. I got to be Jesus during our church’s reading of the Passion. I’ve been the narrator before, and the girl who questions Peter, but not Jesus. All jokes aside about my being female, I took my role seriously and actually read over the script before Sunday’s service, even though I know the plot and dialog almost by heart from all the Palm Sundays I’ve attended. Participating keeps me from drifting off hearing it again, but it also makes it more present to me.

So, as Jesus, I stood in front of the congregation as we read the play. I was figuratively given the kiss of death, questioned, questioned again, and again. I stood through the ridicule, the mocking, the dressing up, the beatings, and then through my fellow parishioners calling out, “Crucify him!” Wait, it wasn’t the parishioners, it was the “crowd” that said that. But really, Jesus stood as people who knew him, who went to worship with him, who listened to him, cried out for his death. I imagined that as I stood there in my slacks and sweater, looking back at my friends standing in the pews. Imagine them yelling out for me to be put to death because it was easier than putting up with what I had to say, because I was a rebel, because I made them uncomfortable in calling them to change their lives.

Would I go to my death for people who I knew were wrong? Would I allow myself to be humiliated and tortured for a bunch of people who wouldn’t stand up for me? For friends who abandoned me? For people I didn’t know, and who wouldn’t listen to me? I don’t think I would. But Jesus did. He took on what to me is unimaginable pain and humiliation not just for those people calling for his death, but for every generation of people who would come after them.

For Jesus, the question, “Would you take a bullet for me,” probably wouldn’t even make him blink. A bullet is quick and deadly. Death comes fast. But all that is saved is a physical life in this case. He said yes to a death that was slow, drawn out, and embarrassing, and for strangers and people who don’t like him or think what he had to say makes any sense so that they can enter Heaven and spend eternity with him.

I pray that we all have a meaningful Holy Week, and that more people come to know the man who did more than take a bullet for us to keep us physically alive. He died a terrible death so that we can die, but keep living in Him.