I’ve been thinking a lot about this over the past week since Robin Oake spoke at our church. I cannot begin to comprehend what it must be like to do that. I’m delighting in being a father and I love my son. What pain it must be to lose the one you love.
It’s a sad fact that we are often hurt by the ones closest to us. We are more likely to be killed by a family member than a stranger; children more likely to suffer at the hands of a relative than someone they don’t know. The most dangerous place for a child is their own home. It’s a likely possibility then that forgiveness involves forgiving those we were once close to.
Yet God forgave His Son’s killers. God is prepared not only to forgive but to love the ones responsible for His death. God not only sees the horrible guilt of causing the death of Jesus but then offers us a place at His table and in His home, because we, I, am responsible for His death.
It struck me like a brick to the head, that I must never forget that I am a cause, a reason, for the death of an innocent man. I am one of the reasons Jesus was crucified. Yet His Father has not just pretended this event never happened but in total awareness of it decided to forgive me. Can there be any other word than grace for such a thing?
This crashing realisation, made me realise afresh how much it grieves God’s heart when I sin because that is why Christ died. How sad it must make the Father when after all this I return to my foolish ways and indulge in selfish desires. Perhaps this is why Paul exhorts us to know Christ and him crucified, so that we may put to death the old ways with its sinful desires and be alive to all that God is. He knows the further we stray from the cross, the more likely we are to justify ourselves, the more likely we are to go our own way, the more likely we are to call wrong – right. I do it so often, I make excuses for myself but each time it breaks the heart of the One who loves me and gave up His Son for me. We are called to be holy as He is holy.
I’ve never been quite so aware of the profound depth of love it must take for a Father to forgive those responsible for the death of a son.
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