The other day in the car my brother asked me, "Eh, Jesus was fully man right?"
"Yup, and fully God too."
"That means He would have felt every bit of the pain la."
"Yup"
"Wah, how to [endure]? (paraphrased from Hokkien word) All the whipping, and the cross.. how did He go to Jerusalem, knowing He would have to endure all that pain?"
An honest question, and it hit me.
Some of us have watched
The Passion of the Christ, and have some idea of the sheer degree of physical pain that He endured. But worse than the physical pain was the spiritual one, the pain of separation from the Father that drove our Lord to that desperate cry, "My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?"
What then could have driven our Lord to "steadfastly set His face to go to Jerusalem" (Luke 9:51), knowing what lay in store, where mere mortals like us would have trembled in fear? We often attribute it to the fact that Jesus was God, but we must not forget that He was fully Man too and had to contend with His human nature. This is evident enough from His agony in Gethsemane; we know Christ had His struggles. Yet He was able to overcome them and fulfill His Father's glorious purposes. How?
I believe at least part of the answer can be found in one of the most cherished verses of the Bible, 1 Corinthians 13:13.
"And now abide faith, hope, love, these three: but the greatest of these is love." Faith. Our Lord had an unshakeable faith in His Father. He believed that the Cross was not the end, that His Father would raise Him up from the grave to eternal glory. Many times in His ministry He spoke about His resurrection. He challenged the Jews, "Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up" (John 2:19).
Do we have faith in the Father like Jesus did? God calls us to follow Him, but so often we are held back by our fears of the challenges and difficulties that surround us or lie ahead. Peter actually walked on water, but "when he saw that the wind was boisterous, he was afraid; and beginning to sink he cried out, saying, "Lord, save me!" Hear Jesus' reply, "
O you of little faith, why did you doubt?" If we think our circumstances are too difficult, how do they compare with walking on water? Yet if we have faith, then nothing is too difficult for our God.
Hope. Faith and hope go hand-in-hand. The writer of Hebrews tell us,
"Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." (Heb 11:1) In other words, faith keeps us looking towards what we hope for but do not yet see. Jesus' faith in His Father to raise Him up gave Him an eternal hope, the hope of a new life with the Father in all glory. He prayed shortly before His death, "And now, O Father, glorify Me together with Yourself, with the glory which I had with You before the world was." (John 17:5). He longed for the blissful reunion with the Father, never again to be broken. His present sufferings were nothing compared to that hope. "Jesus.. for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God." Heb 12:2.
Do we too share an eternal hope beyond the temporary sufferings of this passing world? Or are we too bogged down by our present struggles, our worries about life ahead and our fear of death to catch that glorious vision of eternal life with Jesus and the Father? The late Rev Charles Albert Tindley, the great Afro-American pastor, wrote in one of his hymns,
Soon we shall reach that distant shining shore
Free from all the storms we'll rest forever more
Safe within the veil, we'll furl the riven sail
And the storms will all be over, Hallelujah!
And if we have caught that eternal hope, are we living in the light of it? Are we storing up eternal treasures as Jesus commanded, developing our relationships with God and with people, bringing lost sheep into His fold? Or are we busying ourselves storing up worldly treasures and enjoying worldly pleasures?
So we see that faith and hope helped to carry our Lord Jesus through His life here on earth to the Cross. But what was it that made Him come down in the first place? What was it that made the Father send His Son to die? I believe Paul grasped the answer when he wrote, "But the greatest of these is love."
Love. That wonderful word. "For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life." The apostle John writes, "In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins." (1 John 4:10). Faith and hope exist for the good of those who have it. Love is the only virtue that exists wholly for the good of someone else. "Love... does not seek its own." (1 Cor. 13:5). It was love for us and not for Himself that prompted the Father to send His Son down, and drove Jesus unflinchingly to the Cross.
Truly truly as the songs go, "Amazing love, how can it be? That you my King would die for me!" "How deep the Father's love for us! How vast beyond all measure? That He should give His only Son, to make a wretch His treasure." God's love for us is so deep, so vast, so amazing, that we may never fully comprehend it.
"We love Him because He first loved us." (1 John 4:19). How much do we love God in response? Do we love Him enough to be willing to sacrifice and endure all to follow Him? Paul wrote,
"For the love of Christ compels us... that those who live should no longer live for themselves, but for Him who died for them and rose again." (2 Cor 5:14-15). I am ashamed to say that my love for Him often grows thin. But when I dwell upon His sacrifice and what He has done, the love for Him begins to stir again. O God, please help me to love you more each day!
And let us not forget that to love God means to love our neighbour also, for Jesus gave both commandments together. "Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows GOd. He who does not love does not know God, for God is love." (1 John 4:7-8). If you asked me to summarize life, I would say it is quite simple- to love God, and to love people. All we do should be motivated by this, otherwise as Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 13:1-3, "I am nothing."
Faith, hope and love. Not just words to be read for heartwarming purposes, but virtues to be lived out in life as we bear our crosses and journey towards our own Calvary. May God strengthen us all!
