When we were young, my brother and I often engaged in silly fights. We bullied each other, we called each other names, and sometimes we even pulled at each other’s hair. When Mom saw us do this, she would try just about anything to get us to stop. She would lovingly explain why we shouldn’t, or scold us, or sometimes she would punish us. Each tactic worked for the time being, but before long my brother and I would be at it again. One day Mom couldn’t take any more. We could see the anger in her eyes and the grief in her tears, and were sure that we were about to be severely disciplined. But instead she started hitting herself. She slapped herself on the face, and she pulled at her own hair. She was so enraged that she needed to vent her anger, but she loved us too much to give us our due. So she bore her own indignation.

This is what our heavenly Father did for His wayward children two thousand years ago. They had fallen into all sorts of sins. They were doing things they knew would displease Him, but they still did them. He called out to them lovingly, but they turned a deaf ear to Him. He warned them through prophets, but they laughed those warnings off. When they were in trouble and cried out to Him, He always came to their aid—only to be rejected again by them later, when their need for His help wasn’t so apparent. And they didn’t just do this once, but again and again. (And of course we’re all just as guilty.)

Then the time came when God’s displeasure became so intense that He couldn’t take any more, but at the same time He loved His children way too much to let them feel the brunt of His anger. So He made the greatest sacrifice any parent could make. He sent His own beloved Son to pay the penalty for our sins. Jesus took on human form, came to earth, and lived among us. He didn’t come as an “enforcer of righteousness,” but as a “man of sorrows,” to be humiliated and rejected by most of the people He had come to help. He was betrayed by His own people. He was beaten, spat upon, and mocked. And in the end He gave His own life in order to spare ours. “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life” (John 3:16).  ■