And he died for all so that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised. (2 Corinthians 5:15)
For centuries, the love of Romeo and Juliet has been celebrated because tragic love is the most profound.
The families of the lovestruck couple were feuding, so they married secretly. Then Juliet’s father engaged her to a self-absorbed count. In response, she swallowed a drug to simulate death. Her plan was to be entombed and later rise to escape with Romeo, but he found her comatose and assumed she was dead, so he poisoned himself. When Juliet awoke and discovered the truth, she stabbed herself to join Romeo in death.
The story of John meeting Jane in high school, marrying, having 2.5 healthy children, and living happily ever after doesn’t engage our hearts because it’s unchallenged love. Jesus’s love for me is not John and Jane’s love but Romeo and Juliet’s love. It’s tragic love.
Jesus said, “I will die so we can be together.” He knowingly left perfection to enter a hateful world that murdered him. The intensity of his love compelled him into this most epic tragedy in history.
Like Juliet, it’s now my turn to die for Jesus. But this plot has a twist. Though Christ died, he arose again, and his Spirit returned to live in me, his lover. As I die to myself, the life of my true love lives on in my body. In new ways every day, I reciprocate the death of him who is my passion. It’s the love saga of ultimate sacrifice and perfect union. Our mutually tragic love will be celebrated throughout eternal history.
Prayer: Yes, Great Love, we willingly die for each other.