Sacrifice

The night that Sarah died, my community was sick with grief. All the parents held their children a little tighter that night and made a point of tucking them in safely. Everyone breathed a selfish sigh of relief except for two parents. The moment those words fell from the surgeon’s lips two hearts shattered like crystal on the concrete. Dreams were brought to a screaming halt, and the world got a little darker for that family. It’s odd because even being so young I can still remember the presence of God that night. I remember an odd blanket that came a sheltered our little community.
Years later a little girl was playing in her front yard and she ran into the street to chase after her ball. She was too little to be seen and her little memorial garden is still full of flowers and it sits just in front of the fence in her yard. Somebody built a memorial playground for her and I used to go and sit there as a teenager watching the kids I babysat play and think about the sorrow her parents must have felt as they watched their daughter leave this earth.
In late October 1999, my father got a call. A couple that he knew from Bible school had lost their two sons in a horrible car accident. The authorities have no idea what happened to the boys. Just like that a family was torn to pieces. All of these parents were forced to deal with the unthinkable, the loss of a child. I am a Lord Of The Rings fan and there is one scene in the second movie that always gets me. It’s the scene where King Theoden turns to his niece, Eowyn, and tells her that a father should never have to bury his son. My thoughts always turn to those parents that have had to surrender their children and all the hopes and dreams that a parents keeps for their future.
There is someone else who went through the events that I have just described. The difference? He sent His son willingly. When God put His son on this earth, He willingly wrote Jesus’ death sentence, with His own hands. God Almighty knew what would happen to Jesus the moment that He claimed to be God.
God knew that the only way that He could ever look on the world was by sacrificing His son. I don’t know why He did it, and I’ll never understand the kind of love that possessed Him to do it in the first place. Can you imagine the moments leading to the crucifixion? God sees Judas talking to the officials; His heart must have been racing. Can you imagine sending your son to be sacrificed and then having to watch all of the events unfold?
Your son is betrayed by one of His closest friends. Then denied by another. He is humiliated, tortured, degraded. He is stripped naked for all the world to see. The very people that you are sending Him to die for chose a known criminal to be set free, instead of your son- the only person to ever walk the earth and lead a sinless life. As He is paraded through the streets, forced to carry the object of His own demise, He is laughed at, mocked and people are throwing things at Him. You watched Him stumble and fall to the place of His death, all for your own cause. You watch as they drive nails into His hands and feet, stick a spear in His side and mocking crown on His head. As you sit there looking down, you watch your son take on all that you hate. You watch Him take the place of rapists, murderers and credit card thieves. You can hear His screams but can’t help Him.
Multiply that by a million and you have barely scratched the surface of what God did that day. You want to hear the bone chilling part? He did it all in your name. God isn’t some twisted sadistic Father who gets pleasure out of the sacrifice of the Cross. He is a loving, self-sacrificing Father who sent His son in your name. Imagine the grief of a parent who has just lost their child; now find out that they sent them to die so that you could be free.