When God's Storm Broke

When God's Storm Broke

Imagine all the pain and all the hurts of life
focused into a single experience.
        Add the finger smashed with the hammer,
        to an incurable disease,
        to the ache of rejection—
Compress into one moment all the suffering
from just one life—and the result is inconceivable.

Such a measure gives a small sense of the anguish
that Jesus experienced when all the wrath of God
for all the sin of man from all the ages
        was spent on His own Son.

A small sense—because Jesus’ divinity made His capacity
            to know suffering infinitely greater than mine;
    His Godhood made it possible for Him to judge
            abandonment
            against the experience of seamless fellowship.

But the Father did not spare His beloved Son;
He did not flinch to pour out righteous judgment
        though it caused the pillars of the universe to shudder
        and the sun to hide.

His love for us—yes, for us—was so great that He poured His
        concentrated wrath upon Jesus for our sake.

That anguished Form hanging exposed to the storm of fury,
        that Soul bearing the excruciating agony of sin's accumulated penalty,
           casts a long shadow.

Sheltered beneath the bleeding Son,
        we are untouched by condemnation justly ours,
        immune to wrath we richly deserve--
                    because it was all spent on Him.

But He was wounded for our transgressions;
He was crushed for our iniquities;
upon Him was the chastisement that brought us peace,
and with His stripes we are healed . . .
and the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all.
Isaiah 53:5–6

© Robert G. Robbins, April 2012