Think about it. If you love a person whose life is all put together and has no major needs, it costs you nothing. It's delightful. There are probably four or five people like that where you live. You ought to find them and become their friend. But if you ever try to love somebody who has needs, someone who is in trouble or who is persecuted or emotionally wounded, it's going to cost you. You can't love them without taking a hit yourself. A transfer of some kind is required, so that somehow their troubles, their problems transfer to you.

There are a lot of wounded people out there. They are emotionally sinking, they're hurting, and they desperately need to be loved. And when they are with you, you want to look at your watch and make a graceful exit, because listening to them with all their problems can be grueling. It can be exhausting to be a friend to an emotionally damaged person. The only way they're going to start filling up emotionally is if somebody loves them, and the only way to love them is to let yourself be emotionally drained. Some of your fullness is going to have to go into them, and you have to empty out to some degree. If you hold on to your emotional comfort and simply avoid those people, they will sink. The only way to love them is through substitutionary sacrifice." (141,142)

You are going to have to sacrifice yourself, your wellbeing, your peace, your comfort in order to be a friend to others. A sorrow shared is a sorrow halved. You take upon yourself their burden. "Carry each other's burdens." (Galatians 6:2) There is only so much we can do to bear the burdens of others. We listen and we care. In so doing we absorb their pain and grief.

There is a life-long friend facing major, life-threatening surgery. Another is dying of cancer. They are in your thoughts and prayers. You carry them with you throughout the day. There is the mother whose son or daughter is causing them much pain. She is worried sick about them. She absorbs all their anger and confusion. She shares that pain with her friend and family, who in turn absorb her burden. There is a transfer of suffering as each bears their share of the anguish. They take the burden to the Lord in prayer. "Cast all your cares upon him for he cares for you." Knowledge that the Lord cares for them and has demonstrated it on the Cross encourages and comforts them. There is a love transfer in the family.

"Remember Lily Potter, the mother of Harry Potter? In the first book in the series, the evil Lord Voldemort tries to kill Harry, but he can't touch him. When the Voldemort-possessed villain tries to lay hands on Harry, he experiences agonizing pain, and so is thwarted. Harry later goes to Dumbledore, his mentor, and asks, 'Why couldn't he touch me?' Dumbledore replies that 'Your mother died to save you....love as powerful as your mother's for you leaves its own mark. Not a scar, no visible sign....[but] to have been loved so deeply...will give us some protection forever.' Why is Dumbledore's statement so moving? Because we know from experience, from the mundane to the dramatic, that sacrifice is at the heart of real love. And we know that anybody who has ever done anything that made a difference for us - a parent, a teacher, a mentor, a friend, a spouse - sacrificed in some way, stepped in and accepted some hardship so that we would not get hit with it ourselves.

Therefore it makes sense that a God who is more loving than you and I, a God who comes into the world to deal with the ultimate evil, the ultimate sin, would have to make a substitutionary sacrifice. Even we flawed human beings know that you can't just overlook evil. It can't be dealt with, removed, or healed by saying 'Forget it.' It must be paid for, and dealing with it is costly." (Timothy Keller, King's Cross, 143,144)

God came in Jesus to bear our burdens for us. He came to take upon himself the burdens of the world, the sins and suffering of all humanity from the beginning of time. Only God in Christ could do that. Waving a magic wand of forgiveness would not have achieved so great a salvation. There is a dreadful cost to bearing our sins. Forgiveness does not come cheaply. The spiritual damage that manifests itself in so much emotional, physical and relational suffering takes a great deal of healing. It caused Jesus to experience on the Cross the forsakenness of sin that came between God and humanity.

"Surely he took our infirmities and carried our sorrows,

yet we considered him stricken by God smitten by him, and afflicted.

But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities;

the punishment that brought us peace was upon him,

and by his wounds we are healed.

We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way;

and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all."

(Isaiah 53:4-6)

Bill Stuntz, professor at Harvard Law School recently died after a struggle with cancer. In a testimony at Boston's Park Street Church he said that the thief of cancer, the destroyer of suffering, does not have the last word. God entered into the pain and ugliness of our condition, and this changes everything. "It's part of this world's deep magic that when the One Man, who is so supremely beautiful that his existence defines beauty - when that one man took on himself all the worst ugliness this world has to offer, he changed forever what it means to live in the midst of that ugliness, to live in the midst of pain and loss and hardship. My disease may be ugly... but I am not, and thanks be to God for that. I no longer need to wear those foul clothes that cancer spun for me. God the Son gave me cleaner clothes to wear, clothes I did not buy and do not deserve. He elevates all he touches, and he has touched ultimate suffering and he has also touched me."

Bill cited what had become a favorite passage from the Bible: "You will call, and I will answer. You will long for the creature your hands have made. Surely then you will count my steps but not keep track of my sins." (Job 14:15,16) He said, "God not only forgives my many and awful sins. He longs for me, and he longs for you too. And he will not rest until he has us secure in his hold." (Home to the Longing God, Patheos blog, March 22, 2011, Timothy Dalrymple)

This is what Jesus did for us on the Cross. He took our sins, our pain, our grief, all our sufferings, upon himself. He longs for us to be made whole. He calls. Will you answer and give him yourself, and all that you are carrying? Let his love transfer your burdens to the Cross. He takes our infirmities and carries our sorrows. This is how much he loves us.

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