Lent: Day 6 …And to Know this Love Surpasses Knowledge
The Wood Between the Worlds (By Brian Zahnd)
Chapter 6: A Love Supreme
We attended a church during my late childhood and early pre-teen years that had a picture hanging on the wall in the restroom. It was a picture of Jesus on the cross with these words… “I asked Jesus, ‘How much do you love me?’ ‘This much,’ he answered. Then he stretched out his arms and died.” (The picture above is not the exact image, but you get the idea)
There are a lot of ways that we can interpret what happened on the cross, but somehow one of the most popular thoughts about why Jesus had to die on the cross goes like this… “God was mad at sinners, but instead of taking out his anger on us, he took out his anger on his son.”
If the first thought that comes to mind when we think of the cross is that of God’s wrath or anger, I would suggest our understanding of the Gospel is incomplete.
It would be a mistake for us to separate God’s wrath from his love. The Apostle John wrote, “God is love” (1 John 4:8). If God is love then we have to say that God’s wrath against sin isn’t a split in God’s personality, but more like an expression of his love for the world.
Whenever I see someone post on social media about a friend or family member who has been diagnosed with cancer, inevitably there will be at least one post about cancer (but usually more than one) that includes a 4-letter expletive… **** cancer! I’ve been there. I’ve said it myself. We’re all so tired of seeing our friends and loved one’s lives turned upside down by this disease.
When we verbally curse cancer in the heat of the moment, we are directing our anger at the cancer, not the person. We hate the disease, not the person who has been struck by the disease.
I like to think about God’s wrath against sin as similar to a doctor’s determination to heal their patient of cancer. The treatments and the surgeries are all aimed at the cancerous cells, and even though those cells are attached to and belong to an individual, the doctor is laser focused on getting rid of those cancer cells, and preserving everything else.
God’s wrath against sin can’t be anything other than an expression of his love for people - his beloved creation. God’s wrath is against the disease, not the person.
Think about it like an organ donor. Sin infected the human heart. We were snake bitten in Eden. We needed a heart transplant. We were incapable of healing ourselves. None of us asked to be born into a broken and sinful world, and yet we all have freely and willfully participated in this broken and sinful world.
Another picture on the wall of the church was from John 3:16.
“For God so LOVED the world that he gave his only begotten son, that whosoever would believe in him would not perish but have everlasting life.”
On the cross, God in Christ provided a spiritual blood transfusion, clearing up our soul-sepsis.
Zahnd’s title for chapter 6 is “A Love Supreme.”
The cross is the clearest picture of God’s love, and when we say God, we are saying Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
Zahnd writes,
“When we speak of the suffering love on display at the cross, we must be careful not to isolate this suffering in the Son of God alone. There are some theologies of the cross that make the mistake of imagining the Father as entirely aloof and impassible to the suffering of the Son. Or worse, there are atonement theologies that posit the Father as the source of the Son’s suffering. This is paganized soteriology at its worst. The Father is not the one who inflicts pain and suffering on the Son.” (Zahnd, p. 59)
The Father wasn’t looking away in anger. He wasn’t afraid of getting cooties. He didn’t make the Son do what he didn’t want to do.
“God was IN Christ reconciling the world to himself.” (2 Cor. 5:19)
If at anytime we feel like we have a firm grasp or understanding of the depths of God’s love revealed at the cross - think again. Then think again. And again. And again.
We can ponder the depths of God’s love for the rest of our short lives, and never scratch the surface.
Meditate upon the words to my favorite hymn, “The Love of God”…
Could we with ink the ocean fill,
and were the skies of parchment made;
were ev’ry stalk on earth a quill,
and ev’ry man a scribe by trade;
to write the love of God above
would drain the ocean dry;
nor could the scroll contain the whole,
though stretched from sky to sky.
Refrain
O love of God, how rich and pure!
How measureless and strong!
It shall forevermore endure—
the saints’ and angels’ song.
Paul said it this way…
I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God. (Eph. 3:16-19)
…And to know that this love surpasses knowledge.
Amen, and Amen!