The role that blood plays in Christian iconography is huge - the

Host: The cathedral was empty, its air thick with incense smoke and the soft echo of footsteps fading. The candles flickered along the altar, their light trembling against the stained-glass saints, as if the souls within them stirred with the flames. Outside, the rain whispered against the stone walls, a slow, eternal rhythm—like the heartbeat of prayer.

Jack sat in the front pew, his coat damp, his hands clasped loosely before him. Jeeny stood near the altar, her fingers brushing the edge of a pew, eyes fixed on a crucifix that hung above—its carved Christ, wooden veins darkened with centuries of devotion.

Jeeny: “Scott Derrickson once said: ‘The role that blood plays in Christian iconography is huge—the washing of the blood, the shedding of blood, the blood of the cross, the crucifixion, the violence of that imagery. These are horrific, and yet they are at the center of the Christian faith. There is a place where beauty and terror merge, and it's at the cross.’”

Host: Her voice rose softly, reverent yet trembling, as the echo carried through the hollow nave. The light from the stained glass splintered across her face, a kaleidoscope of blue and red, like grace meeting grief.

Jack: “Beauty and terror. Funny how religion’s built its empire on those two words.”

Jeeny: “Or maybe it’s the only empire that admits they belong together.”

Host: Jack glanced up at the cross, its shadow long and bent across the floor. His jaw tightened, his eyes cold, reflecting the flicker of candlelight like steel.

Jack: “I’ve never understood that—why faith glorifies suffering. Blood, nails, wounds—it’s grotesque. If there’s a God, He must be addicted to pain to make it sacred.”

Jeeny: “You think the cross glorifies pain? It doesn’t. It transforms it.”

Jack: “Transforms it into what? Art? Theater? Guilt?”

Jeeny: “Into love.”

Host: The word fell like a stone into still water. The silence deepened, as though even the stone angels were listening.

Jack: “Love that bleeds? That’s a strange gospel.”

Jeeny: “The only one that’s ever meant anything. The cross isn’t about blood for blood’s sake. It’s about what it costs to forgive.”

Jack: “Forgiveness shouldn’t require torture.”

Jeeny: “And yet we only understand it through pain. Isn’t that what life keeps proving?”

Host: Jack rose, walking slowly toward the altar, the sound of his shoes echoing through the cathedral. He looked up at the crucifix, his brow furrowed, his face unreadable.

Jack: “You ever really look at it, Jeeny? The face twisted, the ribs, the wounds—it’s a corpse nailed to wood, and somehow that’s our symbol of hope. You call that beautiful?”

Jeeny: “Yes. Because it’s honest. Because it doesn’t lie about what it costs to love the unlovable.”

Jack: “So beauty now requires horror?”

Jeeny: “Sometimes. There’s a reason the Renaissance painters filled their canvases with both. Michelangelo, Caravaggio—they didn’t shy from violence. They showed that grace isn’t light without shadow.”

Host: The rain intensified, a drumming against the roof, like a heartbeat turning storm. The candles flickered, casting shapes that danced on the stone walls.

Jack: “You’re saying the cross is art?”

Jeeny: “No. Art imitates it. The cross is what art longs for—the point where beauty and terror finally stop pretending to be separate.”

Jack: “That sounds poetic. But people died under those crosses. Real ones. Real bodies. That’s not beauty. That’s brutality dressed in theology.”

Jeeny: “Maybe brutality is the only language deep enough for redemption. You can’t redeem what you refuse to look at.”

Host: Jack stopped walking, his eyes closing briefly, his breath slow, as though he were carrying something heavy that had no name.

Jack: “You think suffering is necessary to be saved?”

Jeeny: “Not suffering. Sacrifice. There’s a difference. Suffering happens to you. Sacrifice is when you choose to carry it for someone else.”

Jack: “And what if no one asked you to?”

Jeeny: “Then maybe you do it because you remember what it felt like when someone did.”

Host: The air in the cathedral shifted, as though the walls themselves exhaled. The candles burned steadier, their flames taller, their light gold and soft.

Jack: “When I was a kid, my mother used to drag me to church. I’d stare at the crucifix and wonder—why didn’t He just come down? If He’s God, why stay there?”

Jeeny: “Because coming down would’ve been power. Staying was love.”

Host: The words cut through the silence like light through smoke. Jack looked at her, something cracking quietly behind his eyes.

Jack: “That’s... horrifying.”

Jeeny: “And that’s why it’s holy.”

Host: A bell tolled in the distance, deep and resonant, its sound rolling through the stone like a slow heartbeat.

Jeeny: “That’s what Derrickson meant. There’s a place where beauty and terror merge. The cross isn’t just faith—it’s the most human story ever told. It’s every act of love that hurt. Every forgiveness that cost something real.”

Jack: “You really believe pain redeems?”

Jeeny: “I believe what we do with pain redeems.”

Host: Jack turned away, running a hand through his hair, his voice quieter, the fight slipping into thoughtfulness.

Jack: “So when I held my father’s hand in the hospital, watching him die, that was… what? Redemption?”

Jeeny: “No. That was love refusing to run away. That’s what the cross is. Not escape—presence.”

Host: Jack’s eyes glistened, the light from the candles trembling across his face. The anger melted, leaving something far more fragile.

Jack: “You make it sound like God bleeds just to be near us.”

Jeeny: “Maybe He does. Maybe that’s the only kind of nearness we could ever understand.”

Host: The rain slowed, and a beam of light broke through the stained glass, landing on the crucifix—the red of blood, the blue of heaven, the gold of dawn all meeting on the figure’s face.

Jeeny stepped closer, her voice now almost a whisper.

Jeeny: “The cross isn’t the end, Jack. It’s the meeting point—where agony meets grace, where the worst of humanity meets the best of divinity. Beauty doesn’t erase terror; it redeems it.”

Jack: “And maybe terror keeps beauty honest.”

Jeeny: “Exactly.”

Host: They stood there for a long time, two silhouettes beneath the cross, the light soft, the world quiet.

Outside, the rain stopped, and the city beyond the cathedral shimmered clean, its streets glistening, its air washed.

The camera pulled back, rising through the arches, past the candles and the shadowed saints, until the whole cathedral glowed—half in light, half in darkness.

And in that suspended space, between beauty and terror,
the cross stood eternal—
not as a monument to death,
but as the place where love learned to bleed,
and in doing so,
taught the world how to be alive.