The essence of our Triune God’s nature is shared life and shared love. This is expressed and manifested into time and space as grace poured out on us. The one true living God of holy love continuously offers Himself to every person.

We were created in the image of God as persons of holy love, but that was destroyed when God’s presence was rejected. However, because God is love, our well-being is more important to Him than His own. Therefore, the eternal Son was sent into our self-made disaster to rescue and redeem our destroyed race. He became one of us so He could bear our sin and die our death, rising again to restore us to life and intimate belonging union with Him. 

Jesus’ own self-identity is the Sent One (John 17:6-8). That is more than a geographical journey from the realm of the unseen into created time, space, and matter. The source of “sentness” is God’s Triune self-offering nature. Paul describes the “sentness” of grace as kenosis: self-emptying. “…who, although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bondservant, and being made in the likeness of men … He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross” (Philippians 2:6-8 NASB 1995). 

Malcom Guite writes of self-emptying as “…the courteous descent of our loving God into human flesh.” That is the grace of the Incarnation, and it is tied inextricably to the grace of Easter. The reason we fall on our faces in the dust on Ash Wednesday, feast in wonder on Maundy Thursday, weep in awe on Good Friday, wait in breathless amazement through Holy Saturday, and worship in song with the whole of our bodies and hearts on Easter Sunday is because Jesus has regarded us as so precious to Him that He comes for us through His self-emptying grace.

Recently I read Numbers 19 which is about the defilement that occurs through touching a dead human body. I closed the page and went on to my New Testament reading. There I watched Jesus touch the dead body of a twelve-year-old girl. The eternal Son is present in those Old Testament standards and procedures for sacrificial cleansing from death, which is the tragedy of sin. But Jesus did not grasp His equal rights. Instead, He took hold of defiling death, meaning, “I am strong; I am mighty; therefore, I rule.” The Word then spoke, “Arise!” and the dead girl’s life returned. 

At Easter time we encounter the reality that Jesus not only touched a dead human body, but He became a dead human body. His descent of love and grace is so complete toward us that He personally descends into our fears, disease, dark depression, impossible addictions, irreparably destructive decisions, unbearable betrayals, and our hopeless corruption. He descends into our dying process and into our grave. Lowest still He descends into our very hell. He does all of this for us because He is grace.  

His Father sent Him, and He willingly chose of His own heart to bear our defiling, rejecting sin in His own sinless life. He is the complete slaughtered sacrifice which cleanses the consequences of our sin, because He never sinned. His death can be our death to sin in our real lives. His resurrection from death can be our holiness, because by His grace He has conquered every foe and by His Spirit given us power to die to sin and to live in the Triune God through Him.

This Easter season receive Jesus’ grace. Life Himself stands before you offering to take hold of and rule over your death and defilement. Immerse your broken, desolate self into His freely offered love. Then all the riches of His personal presence, His resurrected new humanity, will live and reign in you with great joy.

Questions

Where do you most need to experience Jesus’ self‑emptying grace in your own life right now? Consider areas of fear, brokenness, or struggle in light of Christ’s willingness to descend fully into our human condition.

How does viewing Jesus as the Sent One shape your understanding of God’s love and His posture toward humanity? Reflect on the idea that God’s very nature is self‑giving love poured out toward us.

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