I stand amazed in the presence of Jesus the Nazarene, and wonder how He could love me, a sinner, condemned, unclean. The words of Charles Gabriel’s hymn caught in my throat as they had many times before. Just as the unclean leper, condemned to a life of solitude apart from the family he loved, was overcome with gratitude, the words of the song brought the question, "Why me?" I am very aware of the sin that once excluded me from the presence of the Nazarene, and that awareness magnifies the felt intensity of His grace, to one who knows her unworthiness. Nothing in me deserved His mercy, and yet, in my sin, He loved me, and because of a love I will never understand, He sacrificed Himself to satisfy the holiness of His Father. Love and holiness met at the cross.

 

For me, it was in the garden, He prayed, "Not my will, but Thine;" He had no tears for His own griefs, but sweat drops of blood for mine. And again, why me? This was a sacrifice He willingly entered into, a battle of untold agony against all the forces of hell. And it was personal! For me! Becoming all that His Father hated, the name of every condemned sinner etched in His heart, thinking not of Himself, but of what the Father had asked Him to do. Every drop of blood unlocked the prison doors of a darkened eternity. Every droplet erased the guilt of a lifetime, and the inherited stigma of Adam’s curse.

 

He took my sins and my sorrows, He made them His very own; He bore the burden to Calvary, and suffered and died alone. What I could not do, He did. In the shame of His nakedness, His purity was spit upon. His hands and feet were pierced through with the accusations of unfounded lies, and with every wrong choice I have ever made. The crippling burden of a weight of sin I could never free myself from, was carried by Him. And the screaming silence of aloneness – I cannot fathom its depth.

 

How marvelous! How wonderful! And my song shall ever be: How marvelous! How wonderful, is my Savior’s love for me! Are there really any words to describe this love of indescribable proportions? Men have tried to describe it, but they always fall short. Words are not adequate; they simply do not exist within our limited ability to construe. Within the Sunday morning service that my thoughts had attempted the impossible, a young man, still a child, slowly walked the aisles of the worship center. Bent, not once diverted from his task, dressed in the garb of a Nazarene, a crown of thorns on his head and a wooden cross pressed into his shoulders – giving testimony to the once impending sacrifice, he vividly portrayed what words fail to accomplish. Far less than even this child would deserve to die for my sin, my Savior, the Nazarene, died for mine.