Our Redemption

Allow me to share something that connects with the theme of Holy Week. When Karen and I attended a retreat for bereaved parents last spring, I was given the following scripture to comment on for the Sunday morning gathering.

³¹ What, then, shall we say in response to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? ³² He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things? Romans 8:31,32

I have found that as part of a somewhat invisible community of grief that many of the questions that emerge from our soul connect to God’s purposes. First the big question. Why? Then, why my loved one? And possibly, Why me? It takes focus not to use the circumstances to define the person and character of God. Why did this happen? Is He against us? Paul frames the discussion with an “if”. “If” God is for us… How do we know if He is? How do we know what He is like?

As I approach this passage, I now have a new name for God. It is not merely a title. It captures my mind and my heart. In sharing it with several dozen of my fellow mourners, it struck a chord…

It is “He who did not spare His own Son”.

To this reader, this is even more compelling than “The God who is Love” (as wonderful as that might be).

·   It is “He who did not spare what is closest to His heart”.

·   It is “He who loves without measure”.

·   It is “He who loves sacrificially” .

·   It is “He who holds nothing back”.

·   It is “He who has nothing else to prove, nor needs to… “

So, when I ask the question “How could God allow… whatever…?”, I plug the following into the question instead. How could The God Who spared not His own Son allow…? In other words, in that very phrase I recognize that God is multidimensional and mysterious. He is not easily boxed into any philosophical equation relating to His character.

When I slow down and actually gaze into those words as a window into His eternal being, I encounter its weight and its beauty.

Everything else in this text is contingent upon the FACT, the truth, that God is actually “He who did not spare His own Son”. This is not merely a fact amongst facts. It is the Fact upon which all other facts depend and defer. It is that which makes sense of The Cross, and indeed of life itself.