HE COULD HAVE GIVEN UP -- A GOOD FRIDAY MEDITATION

I Corinthians 13:7  
Love Endures All Things


Jesus, who was one with God, infinite and all powerful, could have called it quits when he found out he was to be confined to the finite space of a womb and the weakness and frailty of a human body.

Christ, the King of kings and Lord of lords could have said, "No thanks" when he saw the lowliness of his stable birthplace or the dirt floor of his Nazareth home or the humbleness of his parents -- a simple teenage girl and a carpenter.

When, like any ordinary child, he was given a chore to do, or when his fellow students in Hebrew school were dozing off or looking out the window during the reading of his Torah, Jesus could have said, "I'm out of here!  Come pick me up, Dad!"

The Son of God and Son of Man could have said, "This isn't for me," when a neighbor took his name in vain or a lazy farmer blamed his low yield on God.

When they accused him of being possessed by demons, of being in league with the devil and of being just plain insane in order to discredit him, the promised Messiah would have been justified in declaring, "That's it -- no more for me."

As the Lamb of God knelt and wept tears of blood in the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus could have told God, "No!  I'm not going through with this!"

At anytime, Jesus could have called it quits, and no one would have known.

But he didn't.  Instead, he said to his heavenly Father, "Let your will be done -- not mine."

Love endures all things.

In Hebrew, the world "love" means "the heart of the Father revealed."  In no other place is the heart of God so fully revealed as it is on the cross.  The love God has for us is greater than the torture, the insults, the betrayal, the humiliation and the death that Christ endured.

The one to whom angels bow down and sing praises to could have called upon the heavenly host to come down from the skies and rescue him from the cross.  He would have left the job half finished and us imprisoned in the hell of our own sins.  But love wouldn't let him do that.

For our sake, love endures all things.

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