It makes me think of love. But what is love? Love in the movies — dramatic, lots of kisses? Romantic love — when your stomach flips at the thought of love? Long-lasting love — comfortable chemistry, content and deep? Or sacrificial love? What is that?
There is a story I tell at Easter, to help explain the Easter story. In World War II, in Nazi Germany, a group of soldiers had rounded up some Jewish people — they were going to be executed against a wall, just because they were Jewish.
As the soldiers were executing people, they decided they would kill only half of the people and take the rest to the concentration camp. As they were lining up the people and dividing them into two groups, some to save and some to shoot, one man pleaded from the execution group to the soldiers and said “I have a family at the camp, please don’t shoot me, I want to be with them”. The soldiers ignored him and lined him to be shot, when another man from the group (who wasn’t going to be shot) stood forward and said “Shoot me! Shoot me instead. I will stand in for this man, take him to his family.” So the soldiers grabbed the family man and pushed him back into the camp group and went to shoot the man who volunteered, who gave his life for the family man. Neither man knew the other, they couldn’t speak anymore, but they locked eyes as the heroic man gave his life in ‘sacrificial love’ for someone else, a stranger.
This is what Jesus did for us – he died for our sins on a cross. He stood in for us, so we don’t have to fear death or sin. He was our substitute. We just have to ask Jesus into our heart and ask for our sins to be forgiven and they are. There is no ‘trick’, or ‘catch’. He substituted himself for us just like that stranger did for the family man. Now, that’s love! Sacrificial love. We just need to accept it as a gift.
John 3:16 – God so loved the world that he gave his only son for whoever believes in him, won’t die but have eternal life!
Liz Spicer, Chaplain and Justice of the Peace
