“He’s gone.” I’ll never forget the sound of Craig’s voice, how it literally stripped my strength, dropping me to the floor. Our firstborn…our Robb…gone? Sometimes it still feels surreal, but the unremittant pain of desperately missing him–hearing his voice, feeling that hug, sharing the mundane and the highlights of life–all of that forces me to accept the stark reality. Robb is gone.
Walking and praying this morning, I was especially mindful this holy week of the sacrifice of God’s Son. We have that in common now, I tell God. Losing a son. But your loss was so different because you willingly, voluntarily gave your son. How could you do that, God? What depths of love called you to do that…for me? Am I truly worth that cost? Are any of us?
No. And no. My rational, logical side understands that incredible gift was not based on our worthiness or in our ability to earn it. We never will be worthy, and a lifetime dedicated to serving him would not earn one drop of his spent blood. Therefore, I know it’s purely and completely God’s gift. Of love. And as I prayed over that concept and attempted to grasp it in new ways this morning, I realized I couldn’t begin to fathom the depth of that kind of love because I would never…never voluntarily give my son to save a depraved, sinful mankind. There is nothing, no one, no cause I could imagine that would ever motivate me to sacrifice my son, to give him up willingly, to feel this depth of pain over and over and over.
What was Jesus? He was pure. Totally sinless. Love, Light, the Bread of Life, Living Water, the Rock. But what was he worth as a son? He was enough and more. He was perfectly worthy for the ultimate sacrifice. In truth, Christ was worth every single part of all creation: the world and all it contains, the surrounding universe into infinity. Yet he was “reduced” to one value, one purpose: sacrifice.
What am I worth? Evidently in God’s view, all that Christ was and is, since he was given for me. A sob escapes from me at the thought. I just can’t get past that dichotomy: nothing could compel me to sacrifice my son for another, yet God gave his only Son for me. I’m not worth it, and now that I know and feel the cost of his sacrifice so much more deeply than I ever could have before losing Robb, I’m in even more awe of his Gift.
It all nags at me like an unraveling hem, one that looks ungainly and refuses to be neatly fixed. Because every time I pull one thread, another pops lose. No matter how hard I try, I can’t make it look neat and even and new again. And in my attempts to make sense of Robb’s death, I feel like I’m trimming and fussing and fighting with those unruly threads. They resist my attempts at order until I grasp that only resurrection can make any sense of this…the seed of I Corinthians 15 that dies and is sown perishable; raised imperishable. Sown in dishonor; raised in glory. Sown in weakness; raised in power. Sown a natural body; raised a spiritual body.
Only resurrection binds my unworthiness with that of a Worthy Savior. Only resurrection weaves together my struggle to grasp that illusive depth of love with the reality that it does indeed exist. Only resurrection pulls together the threads of my frayed existence. Because he does love that much, even though I can’t imagine it. Its existence doesn’t depend on my ability to understand or organize it to make sense of it all or bring it down to a level where I can relate to it. Because contrary to my ability to understand, he did give his only Son. His worthy, self-sacrificing Son.
What was Robb worth? My eternal love. Tears that never run dry. Memories that I hold dear. My life, had I been given that option. But since not, an ache in my heart that will be there until….resurrection.
“And they sang a new song:
‘You are worthy to take the scroll and to open its seals, because you were slain, and with your blood you purchased men for God from every tribe and language and people and nation.
You have made them to be a kingdom and priests to serve our God, and they will reign on the earth’…
In a loud voice they sang:
‘Worthy is the Lamb who was slain, to receive power and wealth and wisdom and strength and honor and glory and praise!'”
Praise to Almighty God, Christ is worthy. I can’t fathom the love in this story of mercy and grace. Yet I grasp it in my hand, clinging to it…to him.
Worthy is the Lamb!