It is said so quickly: "God did not spare His own Son." The words are too short to do justice for what happened. You might sum up the sacrifice of another person's lifetime by saying simply: "Her son died in the war."
Ponder it over for a moment. "Her son died in the war. "Only six words to sum up the sacrifice of a lifetime? When she first discovered she was to be a mom, she felt the nausea for weeks. She connected with this baby first through the morning sickness. Soon, when the nausea passed, she felt the child kick her in the side. It was common for him to wake her in the middle of the night. Toward the end of the pregnancy, she slept hardly at all. Eventually, she felt the labor pains, and screamed in agony, moments before she saw the most precious sight she'd ever laid eyes on.
She nursed this baby boy, she gave up sleep for this boy, and she held this fragile infant. She changed the diapers, washed the diapers, dried the diapers, and folded the diapers. She bounced him through the colic and rocked him through the fevers. She cheered his first steps and wiped away the tears, and the blood, from his first scrape. She provided the discipline, she read the books, and she took him to school. She learned as many spelling words as he did, she explained math and history and the mystery of girls.
She watched him grow tall and strong and she provided socks and shoes for every step of the way. She learned the rules of his favorite sport, and the favorite meal for his favorite girl. She read the newspapers with the frightening headlines, she cried when he left for boot camp, she wrote the letters and prayed for miracles, she provided the perfect weekend for that last Thanksgiving together, and she answered the door when the officer came with the news that her baby boy had died in a ditch at the hands of an enemy who didn't give a moment's thought about the man he shot.
And so comes the sentence, "Her son died in the war." Can a six-word sentence really tell the story? No way. So, too, comes the sentence St. Paul gives us. "God did not spare His own Son." St. Paul uses only seven words to describe the heartbreak of heaven. We read them too quickly, in a matter of a second or two. We must slow down, and realize that there is no way any of us would ever comprehend what it was like for Jesus to take off his robe of light, leave the halls of heaven, and make himself an organism buried in the darkness of a peasant girl's womb, so that one day, after all of the words, after all the teaching, after all the miracles, he could die the most horrible death known to man - so that we might finally know God. God did not spare His own Son. God is for us. My, how God is for us. The cross is the unspeakable, indescribable proof that God is for us.
