When Love Seems Cruel, Part 3

Death is the "darkest thing we know"...and this is where Jesus had to go to undo the work of darkness. He had to go into it. In His Holiness, He is the only One who could bear this moment of cosmic confrontation and win. But as He forged further and further into that darkness, the light of His Father's presence felt far, far away. That's what suffering does; it takes time and stretches it to unbearable lengths. Relief is so long in coming we wonder whether it is coming at all. But the beautiful Psalm Jesus quoted in his agony does not end as it begins. Psalm 22:24, "For He has not despised nor abhorred the affliction of the afflicted; Nor has He hidden his face from him, but when he cried to Him for help,
He heard."
Where was God the Father when His Son was suffering? He was at work undoing our undoing! And Jesus was and is the delivered deliverer.
Our Saviour's words of groaning from the cross were not whimpers of desperation, but roars of a conquering victor leading through the unimaginable struggle of battle.
  "Because our King has led the way—more than that, He has made the way. There was no way through death until He burst death open from the inside. Death swallowed Him, but it was like swallowing the sun: He was a burning light that could not stay obscured. Not even by the darkest thing we know." Jessica Snell, http://ccca.biola.edu/advent/2017/#day-dec-5
Here ends, for now, my thoughts on Father God's heart toward His Son and toward us.
"How deep the Father's love for us
how vast beyond all measure
that He should give His only Son
to make a wretch His treasure....
It was my sin that held Him there
Until it was accomplished
His dying breath has brought me life
I know that it is finished..."