Holy Week, Good Friday, wailing walls

We've had prayer stations set up all week in the sanctuary of the church I serve. One of the stations was a "wailing wall" of sorts that we had fashioned from two pieces from a chain link fence that a member of the church had at their home. The top of these fences had barbed wire across them which caused us pause but we decided to cover them with burlap to protect anyone from injury as they placed their prayers in the wall throughout the week, Tonight we were taking down the stations in preparation for our Good Friday service and as I was standing behind the fence pulling the burlap off the barbed wire I caught my breath. I could not help but think of our Savior's horrific death and the scourging that preceded it. "In the Roman Empire, flagellation was often used as a prelude to crucifixion, and in this context is sometimes referred to as scourging. Whips with small pieces of metal or bone at the tips were commonly used. Such a device could easily cause disfigurement and serious trauma, such as ripping pieces of flesh from the body or loss of an eye. In addition to causing severe pain, the victim would approach a state of hypovolemic shock due to loss of blood." The words of the scripture and the songs that were sung penetrated even more deeply. Seeing the steeple of the church through the barbed wire made Christ's sacrifice for us all the more weighty and caused me to ask the question I find myself asking every year at this time, "Is what we are living for worth Christ dying for?"