by Sharon L. Reidenbach

A little boy, unpopular in school, announced to his parents, “I want to make Valentines for each one of my classmates.” His parents watched him work hard for those who cared nothing about him! After school, he again, walked home alone. But instead of sadness he bounced right in, smiled and said, “Not a one. I didn’t forget a one, not a single one!” (A related story from The Oxford Cart, by Chuck Swindoll).
The journey of undaunted Love; our definition began in the manger, and culminates on an old wooden cross. Christ’s earthly thirty-three years were over. Jesus finished what was promised.
Christ came:
-not to win a popularity contest: “ And when we see Him, there is no beauty that we should desire Him” (Isaiah 53:2, NKJV).
-to teach us how to live: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all mind. You shall love your neighbor as yourself” (Matthew 22: 37-39).
-to reveal Almighty God: “And he who sees Me sees Him who sent Me” (John 12:45).
-to give us vitality: “I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly” (John 10:10).
-to reunite us to God: “For if when we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, we shall be saved by His life” (Romans 5: 1)
-to give us a comforter when He returned to Heaven: “I will ask the Father to give you someone else to stand by you, to be with you always. The Spirit of truth, he is with you and will live in your hearts” (John 14:16-17).
-when we weren’t lovable: “But God demonstrates His love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8).
-to fulfill God’s sacrificial love: “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life” (John 3:16).
But the Son of God, like the little boy, walked to the cross, alone. Yet, He held no grudge, rather He said, “Father forgive them, for they know not what they do” (Luke 23:34).
At the end, He said from the cross, “ Father, ‘It’ is finished” (John 19:30). [I didn’t miss a one, not one did I forget to offer life to, and reflect Your loving grace to those who’d come to Me.].
Christ showed us how to live, was crucified, and rose from the grave in three days. He forged what could have been an impossible path to salvation for each of us. This Easter to accept Him as Savior is saying, “Yes,” to the ‘final definition of love,’ and we’ll never walk alone.