by Luke Kincaid
Before Seth was born Cammie and I tried to get as much info as possible in regards to being good parents and about what we could expect from our little one. Out of all the research we did and questions we asked there was one little bit of info that I only discovered after Seth was born and had became a lot more mobile. This discovery was how often your little one can accidently hurt you physically. Since Seth has been up and about I have been poked in the eyes on numerous occasions, I have almost received a black eye thanks to a pretty solid kick and yesterday I was on the receiving end of a head butt to the nose! Now these often happen when Seth and I are having a bit of a wrestling match or playing around and they are not intentional from his side – but they still hurt!
The reason I wanted to share this with you is because this ties into something that I was reading yesterday in one of my favorite books “Radical” by David Platt and the fact that any hurt that I have felt as a result from my son is superficial and forgivable compared to how our sin hurt Jesus, the Son of God, in a way that none of His disciples will ever have to experience – the fact that Jesus received the full wrath of God for our sin.

David Platt writes about an observation he has made about many Christians in that we are often quick to focus on certain characteristics of God more often than others. We are often more quick to stress the fact that God is a loving Father (which He is) but we are not always comfortable speaking about the fact that He is also a wrathful judge who hates sin.
The following excerpt from his book really hit hard yesterday in what Jesus went through for us:
“Picture Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane. As he kneels before his Father, drops of sweat and blood fall together from his head. Why is he in such agony and pain? The answer is not because he is afraid of crucifixion. He is not trembling because of what the Roman soldiers are about to do to him. Since that day countless men and women in the history of Christianity have died for their faith… Many of them went to their crosses singing… Did these men and women in Christian history have more courage than Christ himself? Why was he trembling in that garden, weeping and full of anguish? We can rest assured that he was not a coward to face Roman soldiers. Instead he was a Savior about to endure divine wrath… This is what Jesus is recoiling from in the garden. All God’s holy wrath and hatred towards sin and sinners, stored up since the beginning of the world, is about to be poured on him, and he is sweating blood at the thought of it.” – David Platt
This is how our sin hurt Jesus and he willfully experienced this so that we could be reconciled back to the Father when we repent of our former ways of living and place our faith in Him. This reminder has been such a motivator to continue to fight against sin in my life and not to become comfortable in it. Thank you Jesus for experiencing the wrath of God for my sin so that I will never have to.
Luke