“When I stand before the throneDressed in beauty not my own
When I see thee as thou art
Love thee with unsinning heart,
Then, Lord, shall I full know
Not ’til then – how much I owe.”
Charles Spurgeon
I wonder, Lord, what the cross truly cost you. You took all of our sin and experienced the entire wrath God intended for that sin. If one sin will earn us eternity separated from You, what of the whole lot? Yet Jesus, you bore an eternity’s worth of wrath in 3+ agonizing hours. Can hours feel like eternity? Can seconds stretch into forever?
How awful was that separation to you – you who knew unbridled, unhindered access to your Father. My family has no trouble being apart from each other for three hours. I have no trouble spending three hours away from them. Yet, anticipation of that three-hour separation caused you to sweat great drops of blood. I cannot imagine how that felt.
What was it like to feel such dread for what seems to me, such a short, temporary time apart? I can never comprehend the pain, the rift in the bond you share. That love would do what it was never meant to do, to abandon and forsake the one most loved. You took that abandonment, the intense loneliness on yourself so I would never have to.
The thought is beyond my imagining – I am unable to see but through a dark glass. Someday, when I see you, I may better understand the grief you shared, and just how much the cross cost you. And grasp with clearer eyes, and greater love, how much I owe.
Selah~
