Violence to End All Violence

Love is...

... Christ, who left perfect, joyful paradise to become a helpless baby born in a filthy, stinking barn, in order to live a flawlessly obedient life in a foul, heartache-filled world.  And why?  To save and liberate a people who did not know they needed saving, and even if they did, did not want His type of liberation.  Yes, He came to preach and teach, to reign and to judge, but just as importantly, He came to be rejected, despised, and executed by His own family, His own people, His own home, His own government, and ultimately, His. own. Father.

His own Father?!

Yes.  God the Father is perfectly blameless and just and, therefore, must punish all who do not live up to His perfect standard of law.  But Christ, who was completely innocent, stood in His people's place before the Just Judge and said, "I will take the blame for the tremendous failings and disobedience of My people.  I will become the wretched filth with which they have filled the earth.  And I will suffer the punishment that they deserve so that, when they turn to me in sorrow over their disobedience and believe that what I have done is their only hope, they may have a home in paradise with Me."

People often speak of our sin crucifying Christ and God turning His back on His Son while we tortured and killed Him, but only half of that is true.  While it is true that He was crucified because of our sin, it was Christ's own Father who raged against Him in full force, not at all turning His back on Him, but facing Him head on and throwing every bit of His wrath and judgment at Him. What it looked like was this:  He was stripped down to nakedness, spit on, beaten to a pulp, whipped with leather straps that had sharp bits of bone and metal on the ends of them, his skin was torn off, his muscles and bones were exposed, all to the point of being completely unrecognizable even to those who were closest to Him.  He was made to carry His own unbelievably heavy cross to the crucifixion site, and was made fun of and spit on some more by the crowd who came to be entertained by all of this.  And finally, long spikes were driven through His wrists and feet into His cross.  Hanging there, in misery we can't even begin to understand, He died.  And this only describes what could observed.  Who can imagine what other internal anguish He experienced? 

This was the Father's wrath against His Son because of what He had chosen to become.  This was the final violence for God's people.

All of this to save a people who cannot and do not deserve God's mercy.

Christ is perfectly self-sacrificing.  Christ. is. Love.