The Special of the Day… From the Orange Moon Cafe…
“The Light and the Mystery”
“Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise Him; He hath put Him to grief: when Thou shalt make His soul an offering for sin, He shall see His seed, He shall prolong his days, and the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in His hand. He shall see of the travail of His soul, and shall be satisfied: by His knowledge shall My righteous servant justify many; for He shall bear their iniquities” (Isaiah 53:10-11).
The suffering of the Lord Jesus Christ at the hand of the Father who eternally loved Him speaks of a mystery never to be fully comprehended. “The Father loveth the Son… He hath made Him to be sin for us, who knew no sin” (John 3:35; II Corinthians 5:21). Scripture offers both light and mystery in its most familiar declaration of God’s grace and truth…
“For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life” (John 3:16).
God sacrificed a perfectly faithful Son in order to redeem scandalously imperfect creatures into family relationship with Himself as His born again sons and daughters. The truth is so fundamental and known by believers - a good thing, certainly - that we may sometimes neglect the profound wonder and incomprehensible conundrum of it all. How can such a Being exist, so full of mercy and grace? How did such a One put to grief His devoted Son for the benefit of derelict sinners? What mode and measure of character forms the heart of He who was willing to forsake the apple of His eye on a cruel cross in order to receive us as His “accepted in the Beloved?” (Matthew 27:46; Ephesians 1:6). Let us make this personal. How can He “so love” you and me that the Lord Jesus prayed before His suffering, “I have declared unto them Thy name, and will declare it: that the love wherewith Thou hast loved Me may be in them, and I in them?” (John 17:26).
We will never fully know. “The love of Christ… passeth knowledge” (Ephesians 3:19). Eternity will not suffice in the discovery of a Heart that glimmers with glorious light, while remaining forever mystifying in its immeasurable quality of mercy. We do well to seek as much illumination as possible - “with all thy getting, get understanding” - while remaining ever aware that no final destination awaits in our quest to know the love of God (Proverbs 4:7). “The Beyond in the midst” described the wonder by one voice of old. He is, and let us be thrilled by the prospect that God can be known as the greatest of all realities in our lives. But never fully known, either in this life, or forevermore. The Father who gave His beloved Son for us bears witness to this, the eternal voyage of our hearts into a Heart so infinitely sublime that no end awaits to our discovery of both the light and the mystery.
“In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through Him. Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us, and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins.”
(I John 4:9-10)
Weekly Memory Verse
Ye are not in the flesh, but in the spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you.
(Romans 8:9)
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