Who Loved Me, and Gave Himself for Me

You have looked at it so many times you have stopped seeing what is on it.

It hangs on a wall. It hangs on a chain. It is stamped on the cover of the Bible you carry. Clean, wooden, empty. A symbol.

It was not a symbol. It was a man.

They scourged Him. They stripped Him. They pressed a crown of thorns onto His head, spit on Him, and struck Him with a reed. Then they crucified Him, "and sitting down they watched him there."

Sitting down. Watching.

You have heard "Christ died for sinners" so often that it sounds like weather. So say it with the pronoun.

Christ died for me.

Not for people in general. For me, with the things I have actually done and the things I keep doing. Say it that way and something in you pulls back. Not because you doubt it. Because it sounds too large to be true of someone you know this well.

Paul would not let it stay general.

"I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me."

Paul does not leave it at "us." He writes "me." He had stood by while Stephen was stoned, "consenting unto his death," and years later still called himself chief of sinners. The man who said "me" knew what the word carried.

"He was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities." Ours. Yours, with the exact things you hope nobody ever connects to a cross.

"Who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree." In His own body. Not at a distance. Not by delegation.

"For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him." He took what was yours and handed you what was His.

And in the middle of it, with the soldiers still at their work, He prayed. "Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do."

He was praying for the men doing it. Mercy was on His lips while sin was still at work around Him.

"But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us."

While.

Not after you got it together. Not once you could be trusted with it. Two verses earlier Paul is even more blunt: "For when we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly."

Ungodly. That is the word the cross was addressed to. Not your best version. Not the one who looks fine on Sunday.

So the reason you cannot say "for me" is not that it is too good to be true. It is that you keep trying to become someone it could be true of. And it was never waiting on that person.

Jesus said, "No man taketh it from me, but I lay it down of myself." He was not caught. He was not overpowered. And when it was done He said, "It is finished." Not started. Not waiting on you to complete it. Finished.

You cannot add to that. You can only receive it.

That is the "me." Not the version of you that you are still working on. You, as you are now. He knew. He went anyway.

Say it slowly, with the pronoun Paul used.

Who loved me, and gave himself for me.

Prayer

One word, every week.

Scripture, reflection, and one thing to carry with you.