painful memories

She screamed for help and nobody else heard, only me. And to make matters worse, I was closest to her. So I dove into the quarry, swam out to my sister and pulled her ashore.

I don’t remember much else except being really scared and relieved that neither of us drowned.

Years later, now an adult, I looked away for just a moment, but that’s all it took for my son to fall into the pool. After a friend spotted him lying on the bottom, I leaned over, grabbed his arm and pulled him out.

He never left my lap the rest of the BBQ, as I sat crying with him on a swing while the others watched from a distance.

Several years later there was my other son, floating helplessly down the river and heading for some rapids. “Dad, Dad!” he cried, over and over again. I kept yelling “It’ll be okay, I’m coming.” I did get there in time and eventually pulled him ashore by latching on to some tree roots.  

But while he was fine, I wasn’t. Once again my reaction was to cry in relief at what could have happened.

Not once, not twice, but three times. What’s the deal with me and water? Who—other than some lifeguards—have had to save three people from drowning?

Was it fate? Coincidence? What? Frankly, I have no idea and really don’t care. I did what I had to do, but hate thinking about this stuff—the memories still make my stomach churn and the tears to flow.

Now consider this: If you think I cringe from those painful memories of the past, can you imagine what it’s like for our Lord to remember what happened to Him when He came to earth?

“Then the governor's soldiers took Jesus into the Praetorium and gathered the whole company of soldiers around him. They stripped him and put a scarlet robe on him, and then twisted together a crown of thorns and set it on his head. They put a staff in his right hand and knelt in front of him and mocked him. 'Hail, king of the Jews!' they said. They spit on him, and took the staff and struck him on the head again and again. After they had mocked him, they took off the robe and put his own clothes on him. Then they led him away to crucify him.”1

How’d you like to have that as a memory? Me neither. That’s the stuff of nightmares.

But it gets worse. You see, Jesus, in eternity past—prior to being born as a human being here on earth—knew what was coming.

“This man was handed over to you by God's set purpose and foreknowledge; and you, with the help of wicked men, put him to death by nailing him to the cross.”2

Jesus was “handed over to” His killers “by God’s set purpose and foreknowledge.” Jesus, the second member of the Trinity and God Himself, knew what would eventually happen to Him and how it would happen.

Think about it like this: Consider your absolute worst nightmare or the worst, most gut-wrenching moment from your life. But now it’s a future event, something you have to think about and contemplate from eternity past.

Can you even imagine it? Thinking about eternity makes my head hurt, but thinking about eternity in the past somehow hurts my head more. And then to try and imagine how horrible it would be to contemplate your eventual torture and crucifixion as a human being in the future, well, smoke is beginning to come out of my ears.

But you get the idea, right? Horrible, horrible, horrible. He had to think about what was coming from eternity past and presumably will remember it for eternity going forward.

Ugh. Double ugh.

But that’s what a God who loves you does and is willing to do. He conceived a plan to rescue you and then implemented it, despite paying a terrible price: The haunting memory of the humiliation, pain and death of His Son, Jesus.

And why did He do it? We were drowning in our sin and there was nothing else for a holy and sinless God to do. There had to be a sin offering and Jesus was it.

Now that we’re—spiritually-speaking—safe and sound on shore, isn’t there something you want to say to Him? Yeah, me too.

“Thanks, Jesus. We owe you our lives.”

1  Matthew 27:27-31

2  Acts 2:23-24