He came down from heaven to suffer a painful death so we might truly live

HOW do we measure love? Poems, songs, novels have all been written (and will, no doubt, go on being written) to proclaim the power, value and glory of love. Despite the millions of words devoted to the subject, many of us would find it hard to encapsulate the experience in a few phrases. Maybe this story will help.

In the Himalayas there was a great forest fire. While most villagers fought the flames, one group of men stood looking up into the branches of a tree, pointing to a nest of young birds. Beyond the nest was the mother bird, circling wildly screaming out warnings to her children whom she was unable to reach. The men watched helplessly as the fire reached the tree and the nest caught fire.

Surely now the mother bird would accept the inevitable and fly away to grieve in whatever way birds do? No: she flew down, settling on the nest, covering her little ones with her wings. The next moment, she and her nestlings were burned to ashes.

One man watching that day was the Christian teacher Sadhu Sundar Singh. He saw in the sacrificial act of the mother bird a picture of the love

God has for his family. The bird had such love and devotion for her offspring that she was able to surrender her life in the attempt to protect her young.

If her small heart was so full of love, commented Sadhu, how unfathomable must be the love of her Creator.

The Bible declares that God is love and to those who would ask, “But what does that mean?” the same Bible points not to a theory, a poem or some abstract idea.

Rather the Bible shows us Jesus – the clearest expression of God’s love. Here is a love that welcomed the outcast, befriended the lonely, and healed the sick.

Here is a love that, when nothing else can be done, brings God down from heaven to suffer a painful death so that we might truly live.

Surely there is no greater measure of love to be found.