Lent

In yesterday’s Good Friday post, I talked about God’s amazing grace. Grace that brought about the most beautiful good from the most violent evil. In addition to that amazing grace, I’ve also been thinking about God’s amazing love. The purest love that can exist is the love God has for us. Nothing we can ever do can separate us from that love. It’s always there for the taking. Amazing, isn’t it? Truly, it is. I don’t say that lightly either. I am in absolute awe of the way that God is the full and complete definition of love. God is the fount and source of all love.

The most incredible way God showed His love for us was to send His only begotten Son, Jesus, to this earth to save us all. Jesus came to this world as a fulfillment of God’s unending and unbending love for us. When you think about it, we really don’t know that much about Jesus’ life, but the most important parts to our salvation are contained within what we DO know. His birth fulfilled God’s promise to send a Savior. His teachings are the very foundation of how we should live and the truth of His lessons will always remain. His death and resurrection fulfilled His place as the one and only Messiah. Everything Jesus did within the course of His earthly life was done out of love. Love poured out from God the Father and love that Jesus Himself carried for everyone – even those who would beat Him, mock Him and eventually kill Him. His love was so great for man, that He even revealed it to the thief hanging on a cross near Him when Jesus Himself must have been in unthinkable pain and agony at that moment. His love is so great that He bore every single minute of undeserved punishment on behalf of mankind. He took on all of our sin at that time and took it to the grave with Him when He breathed His last breath and died. He left our sins in the grave when He arose from the dead. Want to talk about amazing love? There it is. That is amazing love.

We cannot even fathom the depth of that kind of love. We just can’t. As much as we know that the love is there and believe in its infinence, we simple cannot begin to comprehend it fully because we can’t love that deeply ourselves. That kind of love is only of God. As a parent, I cannot even begin to imagine letting my child be punished, let alone be made to suffer and die, for the sins or misdeeds of another. Can any one of us imagine doing THAT?! God did. God sent His own Son to save every one of our lost souls. The world was and is so full of sin that God in His infinite grace sent Jesus to preach, teach and to save. Then Jesus endured absolute torture to the point of death all for the sins of every.single.person on the earth when He Himself was sinless and blameless. And, here’s what really moves me, personally…He didn’t have to do it. Jesus was fully-God and fully-man and as He lived upon this earth, His every motive, action, thought and deed was pure and true for the Glory of God. He didn’t have to allow Himself to be tried, beaten, tortured, mocked, spit upon and hung on a cross. God didn’t have to allow it to happen either. It could have all ended in the blink of an eye and all of humanity could have been destroyed right then and there. (Or worse) But, because of the incredible depth of the love of God that Christ Himself possessed, He did do it. He took all of our sins onto Himself and He bore what most of us can’t even begin to imagine. He didn’t do it for Himself. He did it out of love for us. Love that originates from God the Father and pours freely from Jesus Christ. There is no greater love. No greater grace. Jesus was innocent and pure and did not have to do anything for the salvation of man, but instead of doing nothing, He did it all for every one of us. Again I say…AMAZING.

As we prepare to celebrate the ressurection of the risen Christ on Easter, I want to remind each of us to be mindful of Jesus’ love every day. If we know that He loves us and we live in His love, we can give forth from that love.  Pure evil and sin took Jesus to the cross, but it was love that kept Him there for the sake of our souls. Let’s not take that for granted. Let’s not forget that Jesus truly paid it all. All to Him we owe.

John 3:16-17 (NIV) really says it all:  “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him…”

Today is Good Friday. It’s a day when we Christians recognize and remember the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. The recognition of this day is, of course, very significant in Christian faith. It is the day that our Savior took our sins to Calvary and died with them on the cross. But, it’s more than that. Far more. I have been thinking about Good Friday a good bit lately and wanted to share my thoughts.

My first thought is that Good Friday is a significant name for this day because it truly and securely solidifies just exactly how gracious our God really is. God is the only way to bring good from evil. Only from God can use something horrible to reveal something beautiful. God is love and only from His love do good and wonderful things come. That’s His way. The ultimate revealing of this is in Jesus’ trial, crucifixion, death and then, of course, His resurrection. Jesus suffered tremendously. He was tried unfairly and sentenced cruelly without cause. He was savagely beaten, made to carry His own cross in a weakened and bloody condition and was hung to die after He had endured painful and terrible torture. As He hung, he was mocked time and time again. The guards were so callous as to gamble for His clothes. His own disciples fled. He had to endure pain of every magnitude imaginable. He did this out of complete and unfailing love. The cross brought death to Jesus and He was buried. After unthinkable acts of violence and malice, He was laid to rest in a tomb. We can’t even begin to imagine what Jesus went through, really. It had to have been the most awful occurrence any of us could imagine and more. But, God with His abundant mercy, brought good from all of that. God turned that horrid situation into the most beautiful and meaningful event the world will ever know until the Second Coming of Christ. God resurrected Jesus on the third day. He brought Jesus out of death and back into life. He gave Jesus more time with His disciples so that they would be prepared to spread the Message throughout the world. Then God brought Jesus back into His heavenly home. How beautiful is that?! Just as the torture Jesus endured was awfully indescribable, the absolute beauty of his resurrection is equally indescribable. God, in all of His magnificent grace, took the most awful event and made something miraculous and beautiful from it. That is love. That is love, goodness and grace which can only come from God. God is the giver of all things good. And, only He could take something so terrible and use it victoriously for the good. This is the most amazing gift any of us could ever receive. God poured out His grace, mercy and love at the expensive of His own Son for our salvation. All we have to do is accept it and believe it. We cannot earn it and we cannot lose it if we truly believe. Salvation is God’s ever-present gift. There are just no words to describe how completely awesome this gift is. I am humbled just thinking about it. His grace really IS amazing.

So, today, as we recognize the symbolic day of the death of our Savior, let’s also look forward with hope. Jesus endured and overcame torture and death. He did it all for us out of love, mercy and grace. There is no hope more solid than this. There is no greater fuel for the fire of faith than knowing our Savior loved each and every one of us so much that He took our every sin to the cross, buried those sins with Him and left them behind when He rose in victory over death. This is our hope and our salvation. Today is not a day to mourn. Today is a day for renewed hope and gratitude for what Jesus did and for the love He continually pours out on each of us every day.

Amen.