| Good Friday, April 6 |
Read John 15:12-17 |
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No one has greater love than this, to lay down one's life for one's friends. (v 13) GOD SACRIFICES The Genesis story of God instructing Abraham to sacrifice his son Isaac is one of the most compelling, incredible tales in the Bible. We follow Abraham as he prepares to carry out God's orders, even to the point of binding Isaac and raising his knife, ready to draw Isaac's blood. With hairbreadth timing, an angel stays Abraham's hand and a ram is provided for him to sacrifice instead. Wow. Just another second and Abraham's beloved son would have been dead. He surely would have carried out God's orders, but one imagines his heart would have been sick with sorrow as he did it. Just think - to sacrifice your own son! And yet, ages later, it would be God permitting his own Son to be the sacrifice. God had given us his only Son, Jesus, so he could eventually be put on trial and hung on a cross in an agonizing death. God couldn't pull back, even when Jesus was praying in the garden, acknowledging his apprehension but promising to carry out God's will. In human terms, it would seem like a terrible action, that God would let his Son meet this fate. It's tempting to think God may have even shown his sorrow afterward, given the reports of earthquakes and the tearing of the veil in the temple, but that's drawing God to our human level. Instead, when you consider the "why" of this death, you can see it for what it was: an incredible act of love and sacrifice. Jesus gave his life for us. The Lamb was slain to save us from sin and death. As Jesus had said when meeting with the apostles during the Last Supper, there could be no greater love than to sacrifice yourself for others - and that's exactly what happened. It is incredible to think that what appears to be an awful occurrence was actually a beautiful act of love. Ken Hobart |
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