PALS WITH THE BIG G: Day 39

In the penultimate post of my project, I'll be examining the reason for the season: Jesus' death and resurrection and my thoughts on why it was necessary and our benefits from God's pro-activity.



On the surface, the reason for Jesus' sacrifice is easily explained: Jesus died to expel the sins of humanity so that we many have an opportunity for eternal life.

It seems to be a straight forward concept, and in many ways it is. There are no strings attached, no hidden meanings; the sacrifice was made for the benefit of all, but when one begins to really think about the implications of how the event happened and the way it happened, it becomes a much more special and somber ritual.

A few days ago I wrote my speculation that God made humanity imperfect for a reason, but with that imperfection came sin. I believe that in order to save us from ourselves, God decided to live as a mortal through Jesus and experience a life of weakness and imperfection first hand in order to better know us. In Jesus, God was able to come to love humanity even more- despite our sins, by experiencing the world as we saw and lived it. And though he loved us for the good we had to offer, God also experienced the very worst of what humanity could do on multiple levels- as a universal being through the Father, and as a fellow human through Jesus: he was betrayed by those whom he loved and by the people he sought to help, he was beaten and tortured, he died a criminal's death, and at the same watched his child die by another's hand.

Despite seeing the ugliness that we are capable of, God still loves and forgives us for these hurtful things because he remembers the good we can do as well. This is difficult to imagine, but that is what makes God's love miraculous. To complete his mission, Jesus confronted mankind's greatest fear- death and by his forgiveness of even the worst of sins committed against him, God was able to reconcile our imperfections and allow us to overcome our own mortality. Putting it simply, I think that because God has been able to forgive us of even the most unforgivable acts, he is able to easily overlook anything else we could possibly do.

The only thing that holds us back from this perfect gift is again ourselves  God will ALWAYS be willing to forgive our mistakes and bring us to his fold, but we humans must be willing to accept that forgiveness which is difficult because it also means acknowledging what we have done wrong. Again, easier said than done in many aspects.

The Passion of Jesus is an event that most people know about, and most are aware of what it achieved for us, but truly trying to understand the depth of the sacrifice is something that took me many, many hours of thought- and I'm still not sure I was able to convey what I really wanted to say about it. That God can forgive what we as his chosen people have done to him is truly mind-boggling- how many people could joyfully embrace and be friends with someone who has killed their child? Not many, I'd say.