Because His Love Knew No Limit

Something miraculous happened when the Roman provincial government put a Nazarene carpenter on a cross. They didn't understand that they were killing the Creator. They were putting to death the Giver of life. They pierced the hands that held their eternal destiny. They nailed the feet that walked in the Way that every man and woman should follow. Thorns crowned His regal head yet adorned with the sovereignty of the universe. Rough wood raked His ravaged back where children once had ridden. Their spearhead violated His side where lepers and mad men once clung in gratitude. And those who once clamored to be close to Him kept distant in the shadows. The smug and cruel gathered though, and slung their insults and their spit. Mocking mouths challenged His power as if they knew anything about the meaning of His suffering. 

Then something miraculous happened. 

Jesus spoke. 
Through blood-caked lips, he prayed, "Father, forgive them. They don't know what they are doing." 

Forgive them! Forgive their mockery. Their callous indignities. Their cruelty and self-righteousness. Their violence and expediency. Forgive their bloodlust and their malignant sense of justice. Forgive their blindness to truth. Forgive their fear and their ignorance of love.

Forgive their ignorance of love.

"This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us." 1 John 3:16

This is why I follow Jesus. His love knew no limit. His life defined love's highest meaning. He made clear the divine core of love - costly acts of service. Love is in losing so that another may gain. Sacrificial at the heart of it, generous, beneficent. 

This love of Christ opens our blind eyes to truth. He helps us to see our complicity with the callous and the violent, the fear-driven, and the self-righteous. Our mocking soon sticks in our throat. We wipe the spit from our lips, but we cannot wipe the blood from our hands. The old slave spiritual asks rhetorically, "Were you there when they crucified my Lord?" Yes. Yes, I was there. And "sometimes it causes me to tremble ..."

Trembling, stained, contrite, and in tears, I hear the voice of Jesus break through. "Forgive him, Father. Forgive him." And then I run to His blade pierced side. Another leper, healed. Another mad man, restored to his right mind. Another sinner, saved by the love of Christ.

This is why I follow Jesus. His love reaches even me.