You Cannot Crucify Yourself

Years ago, I saw something that deeply disturbed me.

In a village in the Philippines called San Pedro Cutud, there’s a Good Friday tradition where men (and, on occasion, women) volunteer to be nailed to wooden crosses.

Real nails, driven through real palms, while a crowd watches, devotion and spectacle tangled together in ways I find ghastly.

I found it tragic, in the way anything born of misplaced devotion tends to be tragic.

And yet, the intention of devotion underneath it all seemed to be sincere. These were people trying to imitate Christ as fully as a human body allows.

That’s the part that gets me. Sincerity isn’t the same thing as accuracy.

I think the theology underneath it gets something exactly backward.

They were trying to finish, with their own bodies, a work that had already been finished for them.

Paul says, “I have been crucified with Christ.”

But here’s the thing: You can’t crucify yourself.

Think about it. Once you nail one hand to the cross, you can’t reach the hammer for the other.

Crucifixion is something done to you, not something you do to yourself.

You may participate in it by surrender, but you cannot perform it solo.

And that’s the whole point.

The Christian life is not self-improvement. It’s death and resurrection.

The old you… the one enslaved to performance, addicted to approval, driven by fear… doesn’t get reformed.

It gets executed.

And you can’t pull that off on your own.

Only the Spirit can kill the rot that needs to die within you.

Sanctification is not a self-help project. It’s a Spirit-haunted execution site that turns into a garden.

You don’t grow holy by straining. You grow holy by allowing the false self to perish so you can be resurrected into joy.

Stop trying to bootstrap your way to glory. You’re not that powerful.

But Christ is.

And I dare say, He’s still in the resurrection business.

-Aaron

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