I often wonder how many of us as Christians really understand or have actually taken the time to look at what Christ did for us. I am not suggesting that it has missed people that Christ died on the cross for our sins. To do so would contradict a basic requirement of Christianity. I would, however, like you to contemplate the ant…
Allow me to paint you a picture. In one minute you will be transformed from the dominant species on the planet to the low-level life form of the ant. You will no longer be physically superior, and you will be at continuous risk of becoming a spot on someone’s shoe. 50 seconds from now you will be using all your energy to traverse the same distance you can now span in a single step. In 40 seconds your next meal will come from a scrap that has fallen from the sandwich of a passerby. Oh… and be careful, for a simple rain shower could cause a stream of water that would carry you away and result in your death. Of course, at this time you will be food for the surviving ants in your community. Do not fear, you survive. In 30 seconds your fate is to live the next thirty-three years repeating the above scenarios and many more exciting events of life and near death of the ant. Now… the big finish, wait… for… it… the whole time you spend as the ant, you will have full awareness of your life as a human, and even more, everything you have given up to become that ant.
What Christ did for us was unfathomably greater. The things he gave up cannot be imagined: one minute to be everywhere at the same time, the next taking a day to walk as a human from one town to the next. He went from needing nothing to having to eat and drink a number of times a day to survive. Christ put himself at the mercy of mere humans (ants if you will) and suffered at their hands. Do you think that before becoming human he had to feel the pain of a thorn or a cut? Did he feel the pains of hunger or the sting of the cold night? Ultimately, he allowed himself to be humiliated by allowing us ants to torture and slowly kill him.
Think about it. As Christians we spend our lives looking at the great things God and His Son has done for us. His human suffering in His last days is the most obvious, something we can see and hold on to making it easier to accept and understand. But was it his greatest sacrifice?
Do you have anyone you love, anyone who means enough to you that you would give up even one part of what Christ had sitting at his Father’s side even for a day? Or how about this, would you give up your current existence and become an ant for just one day, but not for the one you love, for the person who would do you the greatest harm?
So, which was really the greater sacrifice: the death we cling to as the great saving grace of our worthless lives, or the thirty-three years He spent as a human knowing He was a God?
“Just a thought” from one who is not sure he would be the first in line to become the sacrificial ant.
© 09/21/2003 Scott A Caughel