John 10 came up at church tonight:
“I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep... I know my sheep and my sheep know me— just as the Father knows me and I know the Father—and I lay down my life for the sheep...The reason my Father loves me is that I lay down my life—only to take it up again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down and authority to take it up again. This command I received from my Father.”It's a familiar passage, and a nice image - that of the good shepherd laying down his life for the sheep. But when you think about it, it's a bit weird. Crazy, even.
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| Kara requested a black-faced sheep picture. |
You'd have to be crazy to lay your life down for a sheep. Crazy to value a sheep so highly.
Lucky for us, I guess, that the love of God doesn't make sense. We'd be in trouble if it did.
5 Comments:
Are you implying that we, of ourselves, aren't worth much, and that it is fundamentally crazy that God should sacrifice anything to save us?
This is fundamentally incongruent with everything that God says of who you are! You are the height and crowning glory of all creation! made wonderfully in the image of God, such glory that even angels don't possess!
You are of value and worth. The sheep are merely illustrative of a greater truth. Don't get caught thinking that youre a lowly sinner that has only weakness to bring, because its simply not our identity. If you are his sheep and you know his voice, then you are a brother and a friend to Christ, you are a co-heir with him.
Just for your strengthening :)
"Are you implying that we, of ourselves, aren't worth much, and that it is fundamentally crazy that God should sacrifice anything to save us?"
It's not crazy that God rescues us. It makes sense to rescue people you love.
The crazy part is that he loves us.
Would you not agree that we are loved by God because we were made in love, and therefore made 'lovable' to begin with?
Its not so much 'crazy' that God loves us in this sense, it's just an unfathomably beautiful, undeniable and natural state of existence.
I, for one, will spend my life in vibrant, passionate, sacrificial gratitude for this fact :)
We were made in the kind of love that knew before we were made that we were going to trample on, scoff at and utterly reject that love, and yet we were made anyway.
Beautiful, undeniable, and natural, yes.
Also crazy.
I think we agree.
So long as 'crazy' has nothing to do with the idea that we are unlovable somehow.
In the sense of the lengths gone to for reconciliation of our relationship, crazy might just be appropriate :)
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