An Act of Love

by Fred Vilbig

In prayer, I have often thought about (and at times I have written about) the question of why did Jesus have to die? As with many things about our faith, my understanding comes slowly and develops over time, so I return to this question again and again.

People sometimes say that Jesus had to die to pay a debt for our sins. Maybe that’s true, but I don’t know God as an accountant or a banker. I don’t think of our salvation as some sort of a business transaction. What kind of scale would God use to measure suffering? What kind of currency does He use to value it? That just doesn’t make sense to me.

The more that I reflect on it, when I look at a crucifix, I see an act of pure, raw, naked love of God the Father by God the Son. As with many of the Saints (Theresa of Avila, John of the Cross, or even Mother Theresa), Jesus didn’t have some sort of warm, fuzzy feeling about His Father when He was suffering, when He was dying on the Cross. He knew that His Self-offering was what His Father asked of Him, so He did it in complete and total submission to His Will.

Jesus loved with total abandon. We know that because Jesus cried form the Cross, “My God, My God! Why have you abandoned me?” Jesus, the second Person of the Trinity, consubstantial with the Father, Who in His human nature during His life must have felt singularly united to His Father, He obediently did what His Father wanted Him to do, even though it meant that He would be somehow cut off from the Father..

When Jesus prayed from the Cross, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do,” I had always though that Jesus was praying for the Jews and the Romans around Him who were condemning and crucifying Him. At Mass on Palm Sunday, I had a different thought about that prayer. We are the ones who crucified and continue to crucify Him by our sinfulness. The physical weight of the Cross, after the whipping and beatings that Jesus suffered, must have been immense, but I think that the heavier weight that He bore was the weight of our sins, our rejection of the love of God. We are the reason He was on the Cross. So, yes, His prayer was for those immediately responsible for his crucifixion, but it was also a prayer for each and every one of us: Father, forgive all of those who are responsible for My being here on the Cross, for they do not know what they are doing.

Holiness at its heart is not a matter of just following a set of rules. At its core, holiness is all about love: love of God and love of neighbor. Jesus’ complete submission to the Will of the Father was an act of complete and unadulterated love of God the Father, but also love of us. We are told in the Bible that God always answers the prayer of a righteous person. The Saints have told us that our love of God melts His heart. How much more must Jesus’ prayer from the Cross – when he felt totally alone and abandoned, cut off from the Father He knew and loved so much – how effective must His prayer have been and continues to be: “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.”

When I look at the Cross, I don’t see a debt being paid like a business transaction. I see a raw act of sacrificial love, and I hear a prayer by the most loving Person who ever lived: “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.”

I think it is worth reflecting on this again and again. How can we ever think enough about the love of God? Just like God, His love for us is infinite.

A blessed Easter to all!