“All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned—every one—to his own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all” (Isaiah 53:6, ESV).

Lavonne Johnston, PA, was sharing her story with the large audience of healthcare students at our annual Christian educational conference in Duress, Albania. She came to the part where her son was suffering from acute leukemia. For some reason, possibly related to his mediastinal mass, her son had suffered intense periods of chest pain that even the pain pump could not relieve. On one such occasion, she was there holding his hand and crying out to God, “Do this to me, not my son!” At that moment, I was swept into a dimension of the cross I had never experienced.

There is a theological understanding of God’s work on the cross. Paul explains it with several metaphors. There’s an emotional understanding of the cross in those moments we hear or see His pain and suffering for us. And then, there’s the “I get it!” understanding of the cross.

I long have had a theological and emotional understanding of the cross through years of study and church instruction. God will neither forgive our sins through our works nor forget our sins as if they don’t matter. Without Christ’s sacrifice on the cross, we cannot cross the deep divide that separates us from our Father. With His sacrifice, we can. It’s like the Judge Himself has paid the fine of death that He declared we owe for turning away from Him. It’s like we are held captive by the evil one whom we have chosen, then Jesus paid the ransom to free us, substituting His life for ours. We could never have done it ourselves, no matter how hard we try or how sincere we are in the trying—both ransom and paid that cost our God more than we can imagine.

“Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death—even death on a cross!” (Philippians 2:6-8, NIV).

That’s the theology and the knowledge of His terrible suffering that brings the emotional.

But, “Do this to me, not my children!” is deeper even than that. The cross is God’s cry for His children who are lost forever under the burdens of sin, self and death. “Not them, but me,” He cries out from the wooden death machine.

When I heard Lavonne crying out to take the place of her child in his suffering, I may have understood it before and believed it before, but I finally got it.

Dear God,

You took my place!

Amen