“This is why the Father loves me...”
After centuries of God asking shepherds to lead His people, He took pity on us and sent His Son, “the one true shepherd who was the incarnation of all his love for me.”[i] Christ’s whole mission was to do the will of the Father out of love. “The sacrifice of Jesus ‘for the sins of the whole world’ (1 Jn. 2:2) expresses his loving communion with the Father. ‘The Father loves me, because I lay down my life,’ said the Lord, ‘[for I do as the Father has commanded me, so that the world may know that I love the Father.’(Jn. 10:17; 14:31)”[ii]
“This is not a matter of simple theoretical knowledge, but of a vital consciousness which implies relations of love and friendship between the good Shepherd and his sheep, a relation that Jesus does not hesitate to compare to that which exists between the Father and himself. From the humble rustic simile of the shepherd and his sheep, Jesus rises to his life in communion with the Father, and inserts his own relationship with us into such a perspective. This is the true love of God’s children; it begins here on earth, in faith and love, and culminates in heaven where ‘we shall be like him for we shall see him as he is’ (1 Jn. 3:2).”[iii]
Why does the Father love Jesus for laying down His life? Jesus speaks five (5) times of laying down His life. Jesus, understanding and willing, accepts His role as the shepherd by laying down His life. He is perfectly following what the Father commanded Him. “The sacrifice of Christ is unique; it completes and surpasses all other sacrifices.” (cf. Heb 10:10) First, it is a gift from God the Father himself, for the Father handed his Son over to sinners in order to reconcile us with himself. At the same time it is the offering of the Son of God made man, who in freedom and love offered his life to his Father through the Holy Spirit in reparation for our disobedience.”[iv]
Jesus preaches of His death and Resurrection and to go even further, He shows the perfect unity of love between the Father and the Son. The Catechism says, “By embracing in his human heart the Father’s love for men, Jesus ‘loved them to the end,’ for ‘greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.’(Jn. 13:1; 15:3) In suffering and death his humanity became the free and perfect instrument of his divine love which desires the salvation of men. (Cf. Heb. 2:10, 17-18; 4:15; 5:7-9) Indeed, out of love for his Father and for men, whom the Father wants to save, Jesus freely accepted his Passion and death: ‘No one takes [my life] from me, but I lay it down of my own accord.’(Jn. 10:18) Hence the sovereign freedom of God’s Son as he went out to his death.(Cf. Jn. 18:4-6; Mt. 26:53)”[v]
VIDEO – Dick & Rick Hoyt
This video shows the epitome of love between a father and son. The father is willing to do marathons and triathlons with his son as his arms and legs, yet as the father says in the video, it is his son who is the true athlete and competitor. At the end of the video, the son says that he would also be willing to do anything for his father. This is a glimpse on earth of the love between God the Father and God the Son.
[i] Divine Intimacy pg. 174
[ii] CCC 606
[iii] Divine Intimacy pg. 176
[iv] CCC 614
[v] CCC 609