Once More: Because He Loves Us.

This is a re posting from back in March, the day before i was diagnoses with PTSD. So much has been running through my mind and heart since then and at the core of everything is either reassurance of the Gospel or the mortification that in some ways the Gospel is still head knowledge.

Christ died for ALL our sins and the sins of others because He loved us. Selah

Thursday evening i had a bit of a headache and by 2am i was in monumental pain. My roommate called Mere for me but while we waited for her to come, the pain escalated so we called an ambulance. The pain was insane. As i awaited to either pass out or have my head explode, i thought of First Peter 1:8 where Peter describes the joy we have in Him. "[You] believe in him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible." To me, this pain was the equal but opposite feeling; it was like nothing i had ever felt before and at one point i thought i was going to die. I will leave out the crazy details but on the way to the ER, as i was begging God to get me through, i thought of Christ. While my proclivity is to run from pain, Christ, "for the joy that was set before him endured the cross," (Heb 12:2). He voluntarily went to the cross knowing that the pain would be egregiously more pain than anyone can ever experience and He went quietly.

⁷He was oppressed and He was afflicted,
Yet He did not open His mouth;
Like a lamb that is led to slaughter,
And like a sheep that is silent before its shearers,
So He did not open His mouth.
Isaiah 53:7

Now, if i had the power to at least separate my consciousness of the pain, i would. Christ could have stopped His punishment at anytime. With one thought, legions of angels could have come to His rescue. Yet Jesus did not. That night i had a bit better idea of what Jesus endured for us.
He would bear the pain as they beat and mocked Him. His eye swollen, lip bleeding and hair ripped from His face.
He would bear the pain as He was flogged. He was whipped with a flagrum that contained lead balls that would tenderize the skin and hooks that tore out chunks of flesh bruising the lungs and heart.
He would bear the pain as they pressed thorns into His head. A crown of thorns that were five to seven inches long, pressed in to His head.
He would bear the pain as He carried His cross. Two wooden beams that weighed upwards of 100 lbs rested on His shoulder as the longer end drug on the ground.
He would bear the pain as He was nailed to the cross. Nails equivalent to railroad spikes driven into the most sensitive nerve centers of the body - the hands and feet.
He would bear the pain as He was lifted up. The people He came to save were mocking, jeering and making fun of Him.
He would bear the pain of speaking one last sermon. He spoke, "Father forgive them." To John He assigns the care of His mother and Jesus forgives and saves the man suffering justly next to Him.
He would bear the pain as the eternal unbroken intimacy of God the Father and God the Son is temporarily severed. This was far worse than any physical and/or psychological suffering that Jesus endured. Jesus took upon Himself my sin, your sin, our sin and experienced physical and spiritual death and it was finished.

He bore all this pain. Why?

Because He loves us.