What if this was a true story:
Sleeping alone in my house, three men in masks broke into my apartment and dragged me naked from my bed. Roughly, they gagged me and pushed me into their car and drove. Not seeing past my blindfold and disoriented from the abuse, I struggled to think of what I might have done to warrant this hatred from these men. The car stopped and I was tossed into an abandoned warehouse of some type where they tied me to a chair and began to describe in detail how I would slowly die over the next month, the things they would do to me to prolong the pain, and how my family would follow close in my footsteps. Nothing would satisfy their anger except the death of me and my loved ones.
The next morning, after a sleepless night of kicks, punches, and wordless nightmares they suddenly stopped. With barely a word they tossed me a ragged shirt, some pants, led me to a car, and drove me home. They then pushed me out of the car and told me to get out of here, just saying I don't have to worry anymore because they had gotten the man they were really after. Then they drove off with merciless smiles, obviously relishing what would be done to their hapless victim.
See, my friend Jeremy had quickly learned what had happened to me almost as soon as I was taken, and he knew why. For reasons I still don't understand, they had been after him and his family the whole time. Understanding what they would do to me, he made the gut wrenching decision he had known would one day have to be made. He knew there was but one thing, one target for their anger, that would save the life of me and my family. And he did it. He sent his 3 year old boy to the men, to die instead of me.
I began the story by saying what if this was true. I'm finishing it now by saying it is.
If this had happened in the details I described, I would be living my life completely different with respect to Jeremy. I would be at his house immediately, on my knees, thanking him for giving up his young man to save me and my family. I would be crying with him as he struggled to tell me how hard the decision had been for him, but how he knew it was only by this self-less act that so many others he loved would be rescued. I would never leave his side, day or night, acting the part of a slave to his every need or request, knowing that his action I would never be able to duplicate in my own life. I would wake up and go to sleep everyday thanking him to his face for the ransom he paid to save me. Knowing it to be useless, some days I might angrily tell him it wasn't worth it, that he should have let us all die instead of giving his son to those horrible men to do unspeakable things to him. And every time, he would remind me that one had to die for the good of the many, that it had been horrible that the decision had to have been his, but that because of his love for me and mine, it was a decision that had to have been made.
Why is it so hard to live that life now?
Why do I have such difficulty in living for God the way I would assuredly be living for Jeremy in this situation? The event was 2000 years ago, but the results are the same. Some of the means are different, but the end product is not. I was a captive and God did what needed to be done, at great cost to himself, to free me. Not only that, he did it for those people that wanted absolutely nothing to do with him! Who does that? What kind of person does that?
A person of love.
A God of love.
Lord, help me to be a man after your own heart.
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