' “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends. '
John 15:12-13 ESV
What is this love story? That of sacrifice and betrayal. Jesus loved you before you ever loved Him; He forgave you despite how badly you had hurt him; He let go of all of the pains you inflicted upon his heart. Seated high at the right hand over all and everything, He lowered Himself to a manger filled with rats and dung.
And on that day, in that tiny, unnamed manger, Justice chose Mercy.
What does that mean? What does it mean for us? And what does it mean for our Christian lives? Firstly, it means something grandly profound about the relationship between the two virtues. Justice demands; mercy relinquishes. For the two to meet, someone else had to take the blame. God is just, and it is who He is. He cannot err; He cannot abide injustice. This is extremely evident in the Scriptures. So what does that mean for us? Well, it means that, as we are, we are to meet our just reward as sinners, which is only death and destruction under the hands of a not only just, but mightily and righteously wrathful God. Mankind has sinned, and no one is better than that. It is the birthright of Adam. We have broken the law and must meet our fate in His courtroom. But what happened in that manger changed everything...
The story of the Gospel is that of a righteous judge who serves the sentence of a harlot; of a king who swaps places with a beggar. Wrath must be paid, but our pockets are empty. While we were yet poor, so were the storehouses of Heaven sold to set us free.
What is this love story? What does it mean for us? When I became a Christian a bit later in my life, the thing that struck me most liberating about the price that Jesus paid on the cross was not that I should not go on sinning, but rather that, in Him, I didn’t have to. I didn’t have to live my old life anymore; I was free to live and love like He was. I was the beggar boy adopted by the king and given a room in his manor, and so is everyone who believes in Him.
Jesus loves this world immensely, and He did not leave us to face our impending judgment. Instead, He paid the ransom that we have so quickly accrued. He paid the price so that we don’t have to. And now we are free, free to be different.