How Much it Cost

In praise and worship Sunday night we were singing Tim Hughes’ “Here I am to Worship”.  We sing the song often, but last night was different.  The worship team got to the lyrics

It was like the song stopped and those were the only words I could hear.  They resonated within my soul and took on a deeper meaning. I could only imagine the cost, and saw that my imagination fell terribly short.

Jesus paid the price with His life, voluntarily.  It wasn’t the pretty cross portrayed in Sunday School, as child friendly as death can be.  It wasn’t a man with three nails with a few drips of blood.  It wasn’t a crown of thrones placed gently on His head.

Jesus was in agony the garden before the physical torture began.  Can you imagine being in emotional turmoil, and willingly dying even knowing exactly what you would face?  Jesus was fully God – He knew exactly what was coming.  He was fully man – He would know the physical pain in addition to the emotional, the mental, and the spiritual.

After being arrested Jesus was stripped, scourged, spit on, hit with a rod.  He was beat beyond recognition.

“But many were amazed when they saw him. His face was so disfigured he seemed hardly human, and from his appearance, one would scarcely know he was a man.” (Isa. 52:14).

He had nails driven through each hand and His feet.   This was all done before he hung on the cross in the most detestable form of punishment.  This is the physical torture that He willingly endured.  For my sake.  For your sake.

If Jesus’ sacrifice was not costly enough, God watched it all from the throne.  As a parent, my heart aches at the thought of what God saw that day.

Jesus was God’s Son, His only Son.  Imagine that for a moment.  His Son was perfect, without flaw.  In that moment on the cross, Jesus became my sin.  Not just my sin, but also every sin that I can not imagine – rape, incest,  human trafficking, child abuse, murder.  From perfect to vile.  As a parent can you imagine your child turning into vile before your eyes?

From completely pure to totally defiled.  Imagine having to watch your child become the very thing you hate.

Then imagine you are love and seeing Him goes against everything you are at your very being.  Are you turning away?

Jesus cried out “My God, My God, Why have you forsaken me?”  God who promises to always be there had to turn His back on His own Son.  He did it to save me.  To save you.

I can not fathom that cost.  It makes my heart hurt.  It steals my breath.  And yet I enter in to His presence.    Because of what He did, because the true cost I will never understand Here I am to worship.  You can too.