U n f a t h o m a b l e

My finite mind feels too small and too incapable to even begin to grasp the magnitude of the gospel. In moments of extreme pride, extreme selfishness, and overwhelming indifference to sin, I realize that I am once again dismissive of the reality that I was died for by a perfect person sent in the likeness of sinful flesh.

But as I try to comprehend what has been deemed incomprehensible love, it is only helpful to try to understand the betrayal that Jesus endured so that I might eternally abide with him. 

As I put it into terms I can somewhat understand, I think about shattered marriages. There are very few things in life that cause me to hurt for another human like the stories of broken vows due to a cheating spouse. The pain causes me to feel deep pity and compassion for the person abandoned, swelling with a ruthless hatred of the force that could dare to divide such a lasting covenant. I would think that there is very little that compares to the feeling of the person who was supposed to know you best and love you most turning away and leaving.

I think of a wife coming home to empty drawers, crumbling by her bedside that was once the resting places for two bodies - two bodies meant to be one flesh forever. One flesh severed by sin, never to be whole again.

And yet the agony of such betrayal pales in comparison to the face of God turning from his only son - his perfect, sinless son, like an adulterous husband turning his wife over to sidewalk cracks and streetlights: left on her own in the darkness of the city, helpless and broken, rejected. So God looked upon his precious Jesus and, with different motives but in the same way, forsook his son to the darkness of the city - the darkness of death. 

Perfect Jesus tasting death outside the comforting cover of his father's gaze. Like a cheating husband looks away from the wife he once loved most, so God takes his dearly beloved son and turns away. The face of Abba - for the first time - absent. Not in an act of selfish betrayal, but of selfless love. Unfathomable love. For me. 

Jesus: forsaken by his father so I will never have to be. God turned away from Jesus so he'll never turn from me. A glance away from his son hanging on a cross. Unsupervised, his perfect son tastes death so that a helpless sinner like me might one day find rest. 

In times of indifference where a cheating spouse shatters me more than a dying Savior, may I remember the pain it must've caused God to turn away from his son; for Jesus to cry out, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" so that my sinful soul never will. 



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