God so loved the world... (April 2, 2010 - 1:00 a.m.)
By Rev. Steve Bagnall

I talked to my mother on the phone the other day. She gave me an update on the health of my cousin’s wife. Harriet has been trying to recover from cancerous brain tumors for about a year. It has been painful and terrifying, and, after a time of improvement, things are going very poorly now. Her husband reports that she is beginning to lose track of things mentally, fading away in her mind. He has asked God again and again and again to let him take her place. He loves her that much; her suffering hurts him that much.

I haven’t talked to my cousin, but I’m sure he keeps asking God, “Why?” We ask the same thing when we ponder the death of our Lord Jesus. Why? Why did He endure so much? Why did He allow Himself to be spit upon, to be mocked, to be beaten, to be stripped, to be nailed to the cross, to fight for every breath? Why did He suffer the abandonment of God, the deep hopelessness of hell, while hanging there? Why did God’s Son die? Why?

When our LORD sees how our sins separate us from Him, when He sees the suffering of so many; the plight of His children, the unfaithfulness and pain of His beloved Bride, the Church, when He sees this, He is grieved to the core and He decided to do what my cousin has asked to do; He has taken our place, out of love.

God loves the world that much; God loves you that much. “God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved.”

My cousin and his wife are devastated by this tragedy, and so Jesus dies; a parent strikes a child in anger, and so Jesus dies. A father loses his job and searches for months without finding another; an alcoholic fights for 80 days sober, but then, in weakness, takes a drink, a young girl is picked on and ridiculed every day and wonders if she will ever be loved, and so Jesus dies.

Marriages fall apart, children follow destructive and angry paths, parents get sick and grow old and feeble, so Jesus dies. Earthquakes destroy cities and people are crushed and poverty and ignorance deepen; soldiers are called to war; children grow up in the midst of war; thousands of broken lives languish in prison cells while the victims of their crimes limp through life outside, and so Jesus dies.

The people whom God first created perfect now do little other than sin – even our best works are soiled by selfishness and pride. Humans build false gods to reward their false works, and others build themselves into god, following their own whims without regard to others. We anger, we covet the gifts of others, we lust, we speak painful words of hate, we live in greed, we lie, and with each sin we grieve the heart of God and with each sin we turn away from Him and deepen the chasm between us.

We sin – you sin, and so Jesus dies. God loves you that much.

My cousin cannot take his wife’s place. He cannot suffer for her. It is not possible.

But Jesus has taken her place. Her suffering and pain, her sin and death, all of it has been shouldered by our Lord Jesus. He has eliminated the separation by taking her sins on Himself. Her hell was poured on Him, her death was absorbed by His soul and by faith she is joined to Him. His righteousness covers her. Like Shadrach, Meshach and Abed-Nego, the men in the fiery furnace, she will pass through this and through all her pain, even through death, unburned. Protected and comforted by the sacrifice of her Lord Jesus, she will fear no evil and she will enter the eternity of heaven.

God loves her that much. God loves you that much. And so Jesus dies. That’s why. Amen.