I know God loves me. I don't doubt that. But I can't understand why He loves me and why Jesus agreed to sacrifice Himself in such a grisly manner. If He'd waited a few hundred years until the electric chair was invented or when lethal injection came into use, His death wouldn't have been so gruesome. And with television, more people would have witnessed it. It could have been videoed and played back to other generations. But would more people have believed? Would His death have had the same impact?
Jesus went to great lengths to win me back; to make a way home. I can't look at the grisly pictures of crucifixion. On Good Friday, my heart was heavy. I fidgeted in my seat at church. I turned my eyes away from the video and counted to ten over and over again as I fought back tears. How wretched! Yet, this is how God chose to demonstrate the depth of His love for me. Am I worth all that? The ugliness of that death makes me think of how ugly my sin is to God. Hideous!
Yet, on Easter Sunday, I was happy; no, truly joyous! I felt like dancing in the street! How could I dance when Jesus had suffered so much? My dancing doesn't make any more sense to me than Jesus' death. Yet, here I am; overjoyed that I'm fully alive but most of all that my Jesus is alive! Unfathomable! Am I really worth all that? I don't understand it; the sacrifice; the love. Yet, here I am rejoicing in this great gift and I know beyond any doubt that Jesus loves me. I'm on the road home! Come with me!
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You are right, Shirley. Easter is a time of mixed emotions.
ReplyDeleteGood Friday is a time of loss, guilt, humiliation and shame.
But Sunday always comes. And with it, the unbearable joy of the resurrection and acceptance overwhelms us.
I join you in that rejoicing.