Why would God send His Son on a death mission?  Because you and I were under a curse.  As macabre as Walt Disney’s plots are for children, as high as the suspense is after the hero drinks poison, is cursed and sent to a dark land, our plight was much worse. We had no possible way out of our predicament after the Fall.  There were no loopholes, no one making us a promise that if we did this or that, we could leave the land of banishment.  Paradise was lost.  The once lush, evergreen landscape of our beginnings became as gloomy and as ravaged as an abandoned house falling in around itself.  If not for Jesus, we would live and die there.

So, I consider Jesus. He saw His Father’s tears when the curse was explained to Adam and Eve.  He foresaw the implications of the curse and all that it would bring about, things that Adam and Eve could never know.  He saw the great chasm between His Father and the whole of creation under His wrath. There was only one way to save them.  The wrath that fell on them must be lifted off and borne by someone else.  The person would have to sacrifice himself, but that person had to be perfect to do so.  That disqualified every single candidate except one.  Jesus.

Jesus didn’t hesitate.  Within the omniscience of the Trinity, this had been foreseen.  Jesus had weighed this decision way before the earth ever felt the breath of the Spirit upon its cheek.  He knew He would be the Lamb as His Father whispered it across the empty spaces of time.

Every time I am overwhelmed by my past, I consider my High Priest who signed up to remove God’s wrath and offer me brand new mercy. I enjoy the wonder of a clean slate every single morning I awake.  When I am pierced by the sins of others, I consider Jesus, the One who was pierced for my own sins.  There is nothing too dark, too tragic, too hopeless, too confining, too defeating, that can define my life or my future.  Paradise has been restored.  The curse has been lifted.  My inner landscape, once eaten up by the twisted vines of a darkened forest, is now a stunning landscape. 

All things flourish, and the song of Paradise is the song I sing.