The classic fairytale ends with “and they lived happily ever after”. From this and other things our culture tells us about love, we tend to think loving does not involve pain, difficulty, or suffering. And if we are doing it right and it is the right love for us, we should only experience happiness and peace forever. But we see a different kind of love when we look at the ultimate love giver – God. John 3.16 tells us that God so loved the world that he gave His only Son.
God has had a plan for the redemption and salvation of the world from before the beginning of time. The giving of God’s son was planned for a specific purpose. The plan included the excruciating death of God’s only son as God looked on and did nothing to prevent it. He did nothing not because He couldn’t but because He loved humankind so much He wanted to do for us what we could not do for ourselves.
God created us to share the perfect love He enjoyed in the Trinity. He warned the first man and woman of the consequences of choosing to do contrary to His command. When the choice was made to sin, God could have let the consequences play out as He warned. Instead, out of His love for us, He put in place a plan that allowed for the full restoration of the relationship between God and us.
The consequences of the sin we have committed would have cost us everything. Instead God took upon Himself through His only Son the devastation of the consequences we were meant to endure.
The only way a loving God could justly restore the relationship was through the sacrificial death of His Son. God, fully and justly loving us sent His Son out of heaven’s perfect environment to be falsely accused, severely beaten and brutally killed.
Stop and think about that for a moment. Do you have an enemy you think so highly of that you would offer your son or daughter to suffer an unimaginable death so that your enemy wouldn’t have to suffer the deserved consequences of his actions? For anyone I know, the answer is a resounding no. Yet this is exactly what God did for us.
This sacrifice that Jesus made on our behalf at God’s direction is not only an indication of the profound, fathomless love God has for each of us. It is also an indication of how we are called to love those around us. Love will not be the happily every after feeling the fairytales and Hollywood love to portray. There is no doubt it will include moments of fulfilling joy. But there should equally be no doubt that love will include moments of great sorrow.
God’s sacrifice serves to not only remind us of how very much He loves us. It also reminds us that love will not always be easy. There will be moments of pain and suffering. Yet, just as God showed us, those moments will fill a purpose and lead to deeper relationships.