“For God so loved the world that He GAVE His only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in Him shall not perish but have everlasting life.” John 3:16. I am a mother. I have two amazing, grown sons: Adam, who just turned 35, and Chris, who is a few weeks away from his 33rd birthday. I love them both with my entire being and can’t imagine the grief I would endure if anything happened to either of them. They are both adults. They are both my babies. Chris is nearing what for me was a pivotal age: Thirty-three. The same age as Christ when He died upon the cross for our sins; so very young.
Most of us have read John 3:16 numerous times; many have it memorized. If we are Christian this scripture is the corner stone of our faith, of our hope. “Whosoever believes in Him shall not perish but have everlasting life.” This is our hope…our promise. Everlasting life with our Lord and Savior: even though our natural bodies will pass away, our souls, the very life inside each of us, and one day our resurrected bodies, will live for eternity with God.
Most of us have read John 3:16 numerous times; many have it memorized. If we are Christian this scripture is the corner stone of our faith, of our hope. “Whosoever believes in Him shall not perish but have everlasting life.” This is our hope…our promise. Everlasting life with our Lord and Savior: even though our natural bodies will pass away, our souls, the very life inside each of us, and one day our resurrected bodies, will live for eternity with God.
It is the first part of this Scripture, however, that I focus on today. “For God so loved the world that He GAVE His only begotten Son…” It is the Father, the parent that has consumed my thinking, and my parent’s heart. A few weeks back, a friend told me that John 3:16 is her pivotal scripture. She is the mother of a daughter and a son. One son: Her only son. Her mother’s heart connects with the heart of our Heavenly Father; His love for us is incomprehensible. God loved and still loves us so much that He GAVE His son. He gave him to do what? To die. And yes, to rise again, saving us from our sins. Granting us life everlasting.
But first He had to die.
But first He had to die.
I read a book by Christian author, Ted Dekker, called “Showdown.” I read it twice actually. There was one scene nearing the end of the book that grabbed the heart in my chest and squeezed. The father of a teenage son stood on his balcony high above a town in the valley below. This was a town that had been overtaken by the false teachings and manipulations of an evil man, or should I say the evil one. The town and every person in it, save for one teenage boy, had fallen into the evil one’s snare. Evil itself lived and reigned throughout the town. All seemed hopeless. The town and every person in it were doomed.
The father’s son however had other thoughts. He would leave his sheltered home, hidden within the mountain walls and go down to the valley town. His purpose? To save the town: to free the people from the control of the evil one. This heartfelt endeavor, however, came at a great cost. His life. The young man’s father stood on the balcony high above the town, and wailed at the sound of his son’s cries as the town’s people beat him mercilessly. The father, consumed by grief, fell to the balcony’s stone floor and lay in the fetal position, as each and every blow, each and every cry clutched his heart. His son was ultimately stripped and hung on a tree to die, while the father cried. (The book does have a very happy ending, as you can well imagine.)
The father’s son however had other thoughts. He would leave his sheltered home, hidden within the mountain walls and go down to the valley town. His purpose? To save the town: to free the people from the control of the evil one. This heartfelt endeavor, however, came at a great cost. His life. The young man’s father stood on the balcony high above the town, and wailed at the sound of his son’s cries as the town’s people beat him mercilessly. The father, consumed by grief, fell to the balcony’s stone floor and lay in the fetal position, as each and every blow, each and every cry clutched his heart. His son was ultimately stripped and hung on a tree to die, while the father cried. (The book does have a very happy ending, as you can well imagine.)
When I read this scene I couldn’t help but cry. This scene, perhaps more than any other I have read before, pulled back the veil and allowed me a glimpse into the heart of Father God. I could see, feel and hear His anguish. What must Father God have endured hearing the taunts, and the lashes, hearing the hammer striking nails and his Son’s cries of pain? How his heart must have ached when His Son—with blood dripping as sweat from his face—in the Garden of Gethsemane, cried out: “Father take this cup from me…yet not my will but your will be done.” What must Father God have endured when Jesus became our sin, and He heard His cry of anguish: “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?”(Because God cannot look at sin.) How many tears fell from God’s eyes and mingled with the raindrops falling to the earth, as His son gasped His last breath? (If any of you watched the movie, “Passion of the Christ” you can visualize that tear drop falling from heaven and landing at Jesus’ feet.)
Thankfully as Christians we know that the story does not end there…at the cross with Jesus’ death. We know and we hold fast to the hope and the knowledge that Jesus was raised from the grave, and lives at the right hand of His Father. We live with the knowledge that because of Christ’s sacrifice, and His Father’s incomprehensible love, we are saved from the ravages of sin and death. We will live for all of eternity, even to the ends of the earth and beyond, with our Lord and Savior. All because God loves us so much that: “He GAVE His only begotten Son.”
God Bless
Sandy
God Bless
Sandy
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