Wednesday, March 9, 2016
John 13:1 Jesus knew that the time had come for him to leave this world and go to the Father. Having loved his own who were in the world, he now showed them the full extent of his love.
THE ULTIMATE SACRIFICE
Have you heard the story of the Canadian physicist and chemist, Louis Alexander Slotin? He lived in the earl part of the 20th century. On May 21, 1946 he was conducting an experiment at Los Alamos, New Mexico, in preparation for testing an atomic bomb in the Pacific. He'd performed the experiment many times but on this occasion he made a bad mistake. He accidentally dropped a screwdriver at a critical moment, allowing two hemispheres of radioactive uranium to come too close together. The result was that the experiment room was suddenly filled with a bluish radioactive haze. Louis could have taken measures to save himself. Instead, he made the choice to save his colleagues. He grabbed hold of the two hemispheres with his hands and pulled them apart to interrupt the chain reaction. While being rushed to the hospital in an ambulance he confided to a friend who had been with him in the experiment room: "You'll come through this okay but I don't stand a chance." He was right. Nine days later Louis died of acute radiation syndrome.
Louis Slotin's sacrifice was heroic. He was widely hailed as a hero. As great as his sacrifice was, it can't compare to the one Jesus made for us all. Two thousand years ago He walked knowingly and deliberately into sin's deadly radiation. He absorbed the full brunt of God's fiery anger which we should have suffered for our sin. He kept traveling the road to Calvary where He knew He would suffer an agonizing death, the pangs of hell itself, so we might have the gift of forgiveness and life everlasting.
Alas! and did my Savior bleed, And did my Sovereign die?
Would He devote that sacred head For such a worm as I?
Was it for crimes that I had done He groaned upon the tree?
Amazing pity, grace unknown, And love beyond degree!
(The Lutheran Hymnal, 154:1-2)
