Dear Friend,
December 23, 2008 | Q&A: Dear Friend
Suzie, This is the question I have been struggling with lately and I thought maybe you could help. The phrase… God so loved the world he gave his only son. Now as I reflect on it. I think… didn’t God really take his own son back. Jesus died and rose into heaven. God is in heaven. Aren’t they together now? If so, then how can ite be said God gave his son. He really took him back. Heidi
Dear friend,
Thank you for such an honest question. I’ve held this question for a long time, not wanting to spout a Sunday school lesson or to be trite. It made me look deeper and the longer I thought about it, the harder it became.
You see, I can’t imagine how God felt when he sent his son out of a place of protection and glory and honor to a world that didn’t receive him, that scourged him, that even betrayed him. I don’t know what he perceived as He allowed Jesus to know and sense and feel what it was to be fully human — to love, to hurt, to weep, to mourn. Or in the end, when he allowed his death — the death of an innocent who took our sins, becoming the ultimate sacrifice so that the distance of sin was no longer there between man and God.
Will I ever understand that? As a mom, I don’t think so, and yet I realize that the Son willingly took this upon himself.
God gave.
That’s a powerful phrase.
He gave his Son by allowing those things to take place to undo what man had brought into the world — sin. Our peace and our healing and wholeness was upon his head, according to Scripture.
I wasn’t raised in church, Heidi, so this was never a story to me, but rather it was the open door to know God fully. Somehow, some way, God loved us enough that he gave his son that I might be transformed by walking open-armed into a relationship rather than trying to be good, or confessing sins to a third party, or trying to be religious without feeling Him.
Perhaps that part is the most beautiful part of all. Yes, Jesus is with Him again. And you and I can be, too, because He gave.
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