A Pastor’s Perspective

“Jesus Loves Me, This I Know” by Mike Hill, pastor of Calvary Chapel Aberdeen         

Listen to CALVARY RADIO 90.3 FM (mjhill@ida.net)

     During the school year, we often have family devotions in the morning.  Before reading the biblical passage, I’d ask my children, “What song shall we sing today?”  They would spout off several suggestions.  One child requested her favorite song every morning, “Jesus loves me.” 

     How do you know if Jesus loves you?  If you have ever wondered if Jesus really loved you, consider the following excerpt from the book When God Weeps by Joni Eareckson Tada and Steven Estes.  Based on the truth revealed in the Bible, they depict what it may have been like when“He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him” (2Corinthians 5:21).    

     “Up You Go!”  They lift the cross.  God is on display in his underwear, and can scarcely breathe.  But these pains are a mere warm-up to his other and growing dread.  He begins to feel a foreign sensation.  Somewhere during this day an unearthly foul odor began to waft, not around his nose, but his heart.  He feels dirty.  Human wickedness starts to crawl upon his spotless being—the living excrement from our souls.  The apple of his Father’s eye turns brown with rot.

     His Father!  He must face his Father like this!

     From heaven the Father now rouses himself like a lion disturbed, shakes his mane, and roars against the shriveling remnant of a man hanging on a cross.  Never has the Son seen the Father look at him so, never felt even the least of his hot breath.  But the roar shakes the unseen world and darkens the visible sky.  The Son does not recognize these eyes. 

     “Son of Man!  Why have you behaved so?  You have cheated, lusted, stolen, gossiped—murdered, envied, hated, lied.  You have cursed, robbed, overspent, overeaten—fornicated, disobeyed, embezzled, and blasphemed.  Oh, the duties you have shirked, the children you have abandoned!  Who has ever so ignored the poor, so played the coward, so belittled my Name?  Have you ever held your razor tongue?  What a self-righteous, pitiful drunk—you, who molest young boys, peddle killer drugs, travel in cliques, and mock your parents.  Who gave you the boldness to rig elections, foment revolutions, torture animals, and worship demons?  Does the list never end!  Splitting families, raping virgins, acting smugly, playing the pimp—buying politicians, practicing extortion, filming pornography, accepting bribes.  You have burned down buildings, perfected terrorist tactics, founded false religions, traded in slaves—relishing each morsel and bragging about it all.  I hate, I loathe these things in you!  Disgust for everything about you consumes me!  Can you not feel my wrath?”

     Of course the Son is innocent.  He is blamelessness itself.  The Father knows this.  But the divine plan pair have an agreement, and the unthinkable must now take place.  Jesus will be treated as if personally responsible for every sin ever committed. 

     The Father watches as his heart’s treasure, the mirror-image of himself, sinks drowning into raw, liquid sin.  Jehovah’s stored rage against humankind from every century explodes in a single direction.  “Father!  Father!  Why have you forsaken me?!”

     But heaven stops its ears.  The Son stares up at the One who cannot, who will not reach down or reply.

     The Trinity planned it.  The Son endured it.  The Spirit enabled him.  The Father rejected the Son who he loved.  Jesus, the God-man from Nazareth, perished.  The Father accepted his sacrifice for sin and was satisfied.  The Rescue was accomplished (cf. Psalm 22; Isaiah 53:3, 5-10; John 1:1-3, 11-14; 3:16-21; 19:30; Romans 3:23; 5:8, 9; 6:23; 10:9, 10; Hebrews 9:14, 27, 28; 1John 2:2).