It was two days before Christmas when we received news that my grandmother had passed away. We just finished a pre-Christmas service at church and we were racing to the hospital. When we got there our Lola Betty was already wrapped up. She had died as a result of a hospital error resulting to an overdose of Insulin because a nurse hadn’t read the prescription properly.
A few days later, my mother goes up to meet the nurse who had killed my grandmother and her mother who had been hospitalised due to the trauma, fear and regret. My mother did not come to the woman who murdered our lola to express hate or file charges, but instead to extend forgiveness.
My mother shared to me that she forgave that woman because the truth was that that woman was not a murderer. She was a mother who had kids to feed and a family to take care of, and we chose to see her that way.
I have a confession to make. I’m a murderer myself. I have killed an innocent man. And guess what? So are you. In fact, we’re all murderers, and we’re all responsible for killing one innocent man who did nothing except love and care for the sick, broken and hurt. We have all killed a man named Jesus.
It was our sins that drove those nails into His wrists and heels and that scourged His back with whips. We killed Jesus- God’s only Son. And what have we gotten in return? We have received life and life to the full.
What scandal! When I deserve hate, rejection and punishment, God extends His grace and love. Looking back at how my mother chose not to see the woman who murdered my grandmother as a killer, God has chosen to do the same to us. He looks at us and He does not see the people that killed His one and only beloved Son, but as His new sons and daughters redeemed by the blood of His own.
John 3:16 is a verse we all know, but don’t get blown away with enough: “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.”
When we were sinners, liars, cheaters, murderers, God chose to love and chooses to love us still, and offer His grace and pardon when we never deserved it from the beginning. He does this not because of who we are, but because of who He is- our Father, our Savior, our God.
