Beloved Son

“And when Jesus was baptized, immediately he went up from the water, and behold, the heavens were opened to him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and coming to rest on him; and behold, a voice from heaven said, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.” (Matthew 3:16-17)

There are few things that tear at your heart like watching your children suffer.  Whether physically, emotionally, socially, it’s hard to watch their heartache.  When my children have gone through various trials over the years, all I want to do is intervene and stop their pain.  I would do anything in my power to spare them.  And my mamma bear heart wants to destroy anyone who would cause them that pain.

Can you imagine, or try to, that God the Father, who has been in perfect, eternal relationship with Jesus and the Holy Spirit, would choose to send His Son to this earth to live a life in pain, anguish and suffering?  Can you imagine that God, who loves perfectly, so much more than I could ever love anyone, would willingly watch His only Son be rejected, ridiculed, beaten, and nailed to a cross to die an excruciating death?  What unfathomable love is this that God has for us?  It gives me chills to think of it.  I can’t understand it in my mind.  With only a word, God could have stopped all the suffering, a legion of angels would have been sent at His command to take Jesus off the cross.  He could have called down fire from heaven to obliterate everyone causing Jesus to suffer.  But He didn’t.

Meditate on the fact that God did not consider His Son too great a price to pay for you.  You are worth that much to Him.  What is our response to such love and sacrifice?  In his book “The Cost of Discipleship”, Deitrich Bonhoeffer describes the way we can see this grace and mercy of God, cheap grace or costly grace.  Which will you choose?

“Cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without church discipline, Communion without confession, absolution without personal confession. Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ, living and incarnate.

Costly grace is the treasure hidden in the field; for the sake of it a man will go and sell all that he has. It is the pearl of great price to buy which the merchant will sell all his goods. It is the kingly rule of Christ, for whose sake a man will pluck out the eye which causes him to stumble; it is the call of Jesus Christ at which the disciple leaves his nets and follow him.

Costly grace is the gospel which must be sought again and again, the gift which must be asked for, the door at which a man must knock.

Such grace is costly because it calls us to follow, and it is grace because it calls us to follow Jesus Christ. It is costly because it costs a man his life, and it is grace because it gives a man the only true life. It is costly because it condemns sin, and grace because it justifies the sinner. Above all, it is costly because it cost God the life of his Son: ‘ye were bought at a price,’ and what has cost God much cannot be cheap for us. Above all, it is grace because God did not reckon his Son too dear a price to pay for our life, but delivered him up for us. Costly grace is the Incarnation of God.” (Dietrich Bonhoeffer, “The Cost of Discipleship”).