What would you do for someone you love?

Source

"'Cause you know I'd walk a thousand miles if I could just see you." This music lyric has been rolling around my head lately. Oh, what I wouldn't give to see my dad again! Just for one day, I truly would walk a thousand miles.

What would you do for someone you love? Today is the day we remember what Jesus did for those He loves. We recount the blood sweat and the tears shed, the brow broken and side torn. We sit before the cross and remember. I worry, though. I worry that I forget, that I numb myself to the pain He experienced. And I think, what would I do for someone I love?

I smell Mary's perfume (John 12:3) and wonder, what do I have that I can lay at Jesus' feet?

I sit at that table, eating the bread and drinking from the cup...and I cry out with the disciples, "Lord, who? Certainly not I!" Yet I know of the betrayal, the spitting in His face and turning the other way.

I am with Him in the garden, confused by His anguish because I know not what He faces...and I sleep. I abandon Him in His hour of distress, unaware of his blood-sweat.

I am there when they come for Him, slipping through the trees to hide as they bind His hands and sneer in His face. I run away.

And I am there, at the foot of the cross...drops of blood and sweat from His brow drip to my skin. My cry is lost in His: "My God! My God! Why have you forsaken me?" His groans and agony too much to take in, I hide my face.

All the while, I wonder. What would I do for someone I love? Jesus broke the body...God incarnate broke Himself from the Godhead and experienced hell--a world without God. He took the weight of my sin--of my guilt, my shame, my brokenness and pain--and heaped it all upon His back. He breathed His last breath. The perfect lamb, slaughtered in my place. For my soul.

אלוהים ירחם עלי

Lord, my God, have mercy on me.