Our Greatest Act Of Love

"Today's Devotion" For April 17, 2007

Read: John 15:1-17; Romans 12:9-20; 13:7-9

OUR GREATEST ACT OF LOVE

"Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends." (John 15:13)

On the campus of Virginia Tech University on Monday a student went berserk murdering 32 people, wounding another 20, and finally took his own life. No one knows exactly why he did what he did, nor what set him off. The anguish, pain, suffering, emotional distress of thousands of family members, friends, classmates, and the entire university community are palpable. The shock that has gripped the university has also touched the nation. This rampage has been labeled the worst mass murder in the history of the United States.

Amidst all the speculation, discussion, and interviews that I've read and heard in the news media, one relatively small article struck me as of more importance in many ways, than all the rest of the reporting. A professor by the name of Liviu Librescu is among the many shot dead, but his is a singular story. It seems that, according to emails received by his wife from his students, he saved their lives by barricading the door to his classroom with his body, preventing the shooter from reaching his students, while he urged his students to flee. Opening windows they leaped two stories to safety. We're told that Professor Librescu was a Nazi-holocaust survivor in Romania, who also managed to flee Romania to Israel, eventually coming to the United States to teach. Obviously he was a man who had faced death not just a few times before. This time he faced it for the sake of others, not with a weapon to defend himself, but with his body to defend others.

I share this account with you because it reminds me of Jesus' words to His disciples on His way to Jerusalem, "Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends" (John 15:13). Jesus had just told them how much He loved them and how important they, and the whole world were, to the Father. He wanted them, and He wants us, to recognize that our salvation comes with a price. We're not saved by our actions, our goodness, our obedience, or our intellect. No amount of wealth, fame, or power can gain God's forgiveness, love, and favor. Nothing we do, nothing we have, and nothing we might be can get us to heaven. Our sins keep us from knowing God's love unless God does something about it.

Jesus' suffering and death for the sins of the world - for your sins and mine - was and is the only way anyone can be saved and freed from the bondage of Sin and Death that would keep human beings forever apart from God's love and presence. While it's true that Jesus could have called on legions of angels to defend Him and keep Him from the Cross, He was obedient to the Father's Will. He knew that the only way God's perfect justice could be answered was if He paid the price we owe God for our disobedience. While He could have saved Himself, while He could have gotten down from the Cross as the one thief wanted Him to do, and while He could have struck every Roman soldier and Jewish leader dead on the spot, He instead offered His life for ours. He gave His life. No one took it from Him.

As you and I live in the forgiveness of sins and the new life with God we have through faith in Jesus, we are called by our Lord to give our lives for others as well. We are called by faith to sacrifice our comfort and gain for the sake of those in need and who don't know God's love, grace, mercy, and forgiveness in Christ Jesus. Our Lord doesn't demand this of us - He calls us to it. He doesn't force us to serve Him and others - He asks us to share what He has given us. He doesn't demand that we forgive others - He asks us to forgive as we have been forgiven by Him. Ultimately, our sacrifice is the gift of ourselves for the sake of others in response to God's love for us in Christ Jesus. We give the gift of ourselves not for personal gain or because we want recognition, but because we love as He first loved us. Our greatest act of love is the sacrifice of ourselves for the sake of others - following in our Lord and Savior's footsteps.

Prayer: Father, I can't thank You enough for sending me a Savior. You took on human form in the person of Your Son Jesus Christ so that I and all people of every time and place could be redeemed to You and saved from the eternal damnation that Sin, Death, and Satan bring into the world. Jesus' sacrifice of Himself, "not considering equality with You a thing to be grasped," paid the ultimate price for my sins and the sins of the world so that I might know Your forgiven and love and the sure and certain hope of life with You forever in heaven. Help me to live my life filled with that certain hope and strengthen my faith in Jesus so that my greatest act of love is to give my life for the purpose of sharing Christ with others in any and all circumstances, whatever the cost. Thank You for calling me to be Your very own child. In Jesus' name I pray. Amen.
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--Pastor Boeck

Copyright © 2007 by Rev. Richard J. Boeck, Jr. All rights reserved