His love for us entered the black box. The black box was the torture and death we inflicted upon Him while He was human, alive, tender and vulnerable. Upon His exit, He loved us nonetheless. What does this experiment tell us about the nature of God?
The Pillow of Calvary
The Piñata
Let me explain the guarantee that the Son of God gave us at Calvary that His love for us is genuine with the assistance of south of the border imagery. At Calvary, we hung a piñata from a tree, beat Him with sticks, broke open His fragile shell and exposed His most sacred heart for the world to see. Remarkably, it was still filled to the brim with love for us. Buckets of blood spilled through the wounds we opened in the body of the Son of God, but not a drop - not a drop - of His love for us. Our brutal cruelty toward Him revealed His tender and intransigent love for us.
The Foundation of Christianity
The foundation of Christianity is the thirty-three year visit that the Son of God paid us at and about the city of Jerusalem in a region of the earth known as the Middle East more than two thousand years ago. At Bethlehem, the most Holy Trinity delivered to us a love note. They put a love note into our hands. The Son of God was the love note. Thirty-three years later, at Calvary, the Son of God gave us His personal guarantee that the love note was genuine. Calvary was the highlight of the Visit. We tortured and killed the Son of God. If the love note was counterfeit, it would have faded as we tortured Him and died when we killed Him. But it did not. It survived. The survival of the love note despite the brutal baptism into which we immersed Him is the guarantee that the love note was genuine. Two significant gifts were given to us during the thirty-three year visit: 1) a love note and 2) a guarantee that the love note was genuine. Two significant gifts not one.