Every time I read that Christ was sacrificed to take away my sins, it stirs up feelings of guilt. It’s a knee-jerk reaction, a feeling of overwhelming indebtedness to someone who has done something for me that I can never possibly repay.
Then again, Jesus’ ministry wasn’t really about making people feel guilty. It was about love and acceptance and grace freely given, even (especially) to those who seem to least deserve it. When I can get past my own limited human transactional thinking, I can see that Jesus was not a tit-for-tat kind of guy. His sacrifice was not meant to make people feel guilty or ashamed or indebted, his sacrifice was meant to make people feel loved.
Christ on the Cross creates a place for us where “even the sparrow has found a home, and the swallow a nest for herself, where she may have her young.” It is a place of gentleness and of fierce and steadfast love, like a mother bird for her chicks.
Contemplating the magnitude of Christ’s sacrifice, I try to see him the way God sees me, and I begin to understand the
depth
of
that
love.
- Psalm 84
- 2 Chronicles 29:1-11,16-19
- Hebrews 9:23-28
